Yunnan: Part 2

PART 2:

We left Lejiang via minibus on Friday morning for Lugu Hu Llake. The bus ride was crazy - it was supposed to take maybe 7 hours according to our book, but I am guessing that if you measured the distance as the crow flies from Lijiang, it was probably 60 miles away. We had to take this small road winding up and down mountains the entire way and most of the time it was all cobblestones, which made for an interesting ride (read: longest and bumpiest bus ride ever). The scenery was amazing though, we drove through some of the poorest parts of China, through the mountains, and it was crazy to see where people were trying to farm. We also didn't realize that the bus we took was going to stop all the time - at scenic overlooks, for lunch, etc. When we got to the lake but not all the way to the town we were going to, Lige, we stopped for 2 HOURS while two couples from our bus wanted to go out in a canoe type boat to some island. Sarah and I were pissed because the entire bus had to just wait for these people and the driver wouldn’t just take us to the town and come back. Sarah says that's just China for you, and logic isn't really one of the Chinese strong points.

Lige (lee-guh) was also a little weird - we read about it in our book as one of the quaint little towns on the shore, but it seems like in the time since that was written, Chinese tourism has taken over and they tore down the entire town to build a newer version of the same thing. So that means that the ENTIRE town was new buildings and everything seemed half finished, but already open for business. The scenery once again, was its saving grace. The lake is very blue, and surrounded by mountains and not much of any development.

We had one of our best meals in China on Friday night, of traditional Mosu dishes. Alas, something in it didn't seem to like me because I spent all day Saturday being sick. It wasn’t very fun, especially since Sarah and I wanted to spend the day playing in the lake. For some reason Sarah didn't get sick, but she's been living here awhile so was probably immune. Sarah did go out and explore while I tried to recover, and she also did some swimming in the lake. I picked a good day to get sick though, since the next day we would be traveling again.

Sunday I felt better and we set off on kind of an adventure to get back to Chengdu. We asked around and were told to go stand on the road and wave down the bus on its way to Yan Yuan, which comes by “some time after 10am.” We were a little nervous about making the bus, since it all seemed so chancy, but sure enough, around 10:20 we flagged the bus down heading to Yan Yuan. Three hours later we boarded another bus to Xichang, where we planned to catch the overnight train back to Chengdu. Sarah knew someone there who had reserved us tickets for the train, so we just had to pick them up when we got there. Everything worked out surprisingly well, and our timing was perfect – we got back to Sarah’s apartment around 6:30 this morning. Sarah made it to class for the first time in a couple weeks while I went back to sleep! It is my last day in China, and I’m not sure yet what we will do, though tonight we are going out with the UW students for one last supper that will hopefully not make me sick!