Yunnan Travel Guide
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Southwest China Field Trip: Life's Good In Shangri-La, But Not For Yaks
All this week, Jaunted special embed Claire Duffett will be relaying the joys and jumbles of her travels through Southwest China including Tibet. Finally, she reaches Shangri-La:
Oh, Shangri-La. In a cynical attempt to drum up tourism, the Chinese government renamed the town of Zhongdian, which is a pleasant city with a lovely old town, after the fictional Utopia in Lost Horizon. Copies of the book are sold in every shop, so we read it, and no, there’s really no similarity between the fictional land and the town in northwestern Yunnan. But it is TIbetan, and that's cool.
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Southwest China Field Trip: Tiger Leaping Gorge-ous
All this week, Jaunted special embed Claire Duffett will be relaying the joys and jumbles of her travels through Southwest China including Tibet. Today, a gorgeous gorge:
Tiger Leaping Gorge is a (novice) trekkers dream. For the masochistic hikers, it’s probably too easy. But we’re all for maximum payoff at minimum effort, and the gorge offers incredible vistas of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from along well-trod dirt paths, with plenty of guesthouses eager to offer respite and lunch.
That’s not to say the two-day trail isn't without challenge. Old Naxi men trail the weakest-looking trekkers (this writer, for example) with donkeys, offering to sell them a ride when the trail gets to the “28 bends”—a steep, direct ascent from the middle of the mountain almost to the top. They pick off stragglers like lions on a herd of antelope and pocket their prize.
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Southwest China Field Trip: Scaling Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
All this week, Jaunted special embed Claire Duffett will be relaying the joys and jumbles of her travels through Southwest China including Tibet. Today, discovering Lijiang and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain :
Lijiang is indisputably remarkable as a town in Southwest China. Because of its charm and attractions, it’s also packed with tourists. The old town is a hodgepodge of ancient Chinese buildings, topped with low, ceramic roofs and connected by a series of narrow walkways all flanked by open waterways where crystal clear water flows from Jade Dragon Snow Mountain looming above.
It seems every other doorway leads to a guesthouse with small, wooden rooms surrounding a garden courtyard. Few cost more than $15 per night. This is the first place in Yunnan, heading up from the capital of Kunming, where elevation gains might make you drowsy. And for those heading farther north to Shangri-La and into Tibet, it’s nice to start adjusting to the thin air, slowly.
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Southwest China Field Trip: A 40-Hour Train Ride To Start
All this week, Jaunted special embed Claire Duffett will be relaying the joys and jumbles of her travels through Southwest China including Tibet. Today, a marathon of train travel:
From China’s massive northeastern cities, we traveled by 40-hour train to the Yunnan Province in the country’s southwest, where the landscape and the people all transform into a varied amalgam of Han Chinese, Tibetan, and minority influences.
The area is one of China’s most diverse and it converges with the Tibetan plateau, giving it snow-peaked mountains and a multitude of cultures. We then turned northward from the province’s forgettable capital, Kunming, through valleys, around mountains, stopping in the historic towns of Dali, Lijiang, and “Shangri-La,” the town China renamed after the fictional utopia from James Hilton’s Lost Horizon.
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Beware Of Tour Guides (And Tourists)
While in Japan tour guides have recently been excited about getting über-qualified, in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, they have more problems with tour guides attacking tourists (and being attacked themselves).
This week headlines hit about a Lijiang tour guide who stabbed 20 people (some seriously injured) after a huge argument over kickbacks on souvenir sales. While Time magazine dwells more on the guide's unhappy childhood, the China Daily had something a bit more startling report. A number of tourist guides from the area agreed that :
it is common for tourist guides from Kunming to be beaten up, because they often stop tourists from shopping in places outside the capital city.
We've been more than annoyed at times when a tour forces us into Uncle Joe's alabaster shop, but beating up your tour guide? We thought that'd be reserved for the guide who carries the most embarrassing flag or umbrella and makes all the tour members wear embarrassing "Hi, My Name Is..." stickers.
[Photo: A.M. Kuchling]
Related Stories:
· Tour Guide Stabs 20 In China [Time]
· Tour Guide Stabs 20 In Ancient City [China Daily]
· Octopus-Qualified Guides Wanted [Jaunted]
