Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

From 2012 03 Lijiang

A three hour bus trip north of Dali, on a two-lane twisty mountain highway, was our last stop on spring break, the UNESCO world heritage site of Lijiang, Yunnan, China. The modern city of Lijiang has over a million residents, but the old city, where tourists congregate, is a delightful, walkable maze of narrow alleyways, canals and bridges. The Dongba culture of the Naxi people is on display, in pictographs and music, as well as embroidery and popular fare such as yak meat.

Lijiang's latitude puts it somewhere south of Corpus Christi, but its 7,800 feet of elevation gives Lijiang a mild climate. The mountains are never far from sight. A classic image of Lijiang is of the Black Dragon Pool, with a temple and bridge in the foreground and the towering Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background. The mountain forms one side of the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a breathtaking narrow canyon with steep mountain sides through which flows the Jinsha River, the upper reaches of the Yangtze. It's a popular destination of backpackers. We took a shortcut -- a drive along a highway carved out of the side of the gorge to Tina's guest house in the middle gorge, then a three hour hike down and back up a ridiculously steep trail to the river.

After three nights in Lijiang, we were up at 4:30 am to go to the Lijiang airport for a short flight to Kunming, followed by a longer flight back to Shanghai. The next day, we took the long flight to Chicago, followed by a connecting flight to DFW airport. Memories of our Yunnan vacation are as close as my cell phone, where I still have the "Tibetan Cafe" on my phone's list of Wi-Fi hotspots. I can look at the "Tibetan Cafe - out of range" indicator and sigh with warm memories.

More photos from Lijiang after the jump.

Dali, Yunnan, China

From 2012 03 Dali

After touring the Stone Forest in Kunming, we were dropped off at the Kunming west bus station to catch a bus for the four hour ride to Dali, one hundred sixty miles west of Kunming. We walked in, bought tickets for the next bus, and waited only fifteen minutes before departure. There's much to be said about the intercity travel options in China. (The toilet facilities in the older bus stations of China are something else again, but here, too, China is rapidly modernizing.)

Yunnan province might be the most ethnically diverse in China. Dali is the ancient capital of the Bai kingdom. Its walled old city is the main tourist attraction and where we stayed. The old city is laid out in a neat grid pattern, of which the north-south pedestrian-only Fuxing Road contains the best shopping and the east-west pedestrian-only Huguo and Renmin Roads contain the most restaurants. We ate in the "Bad Monkey" and the "Tibetan Cafe," typical of the small, slightly seedy nature of the area, catering to young Westerners, including many backpackers who are attracted to Yunnan's hiking trails. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the old hippie culture, updated with ubiquitous Wi-Fi. By the way, China seems to block social networks like Twitter and Facebook altogether and even Gmail is hit or miss. Sometimes you can connect, sometimes you can't.

About a mile from the old city are the Three Pagodas, a complex of Buddhist temples, the oldest of which dates back about twelve hundred years. The temples stretch up the mountainside, unveiling themselves one by one as you walk the complex. In a separate location there's a cable car you can ride halfway up the mountain to a trail and guest house. The cable car was closed the day we attempted it, so we can only imagine the views.

More photos from Dali after the jump.

Kunming and the Stone Forest

From 2012 03 Kunming

Kunming is twelve hundred miles southwest of Shanghai. Its climate is ideal. It's on the same latitude as Miami, Florida, but with the elevation of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kunming is one of the seemingly countless number of huge, sprawling cities in China. It has a population of 3 million (or 6 million, depending on how broadly you define the metropolitan area). If Americans know anything of Kunming, it might be from WWII history. Kunming was the base from which the Allies supported the efforts of Free China to resist the Japanese invasion. The main supply route was the Burma Road from Rangoon to Kunming, defended by American fighter squadrons known as the Flying Tigers.

Kunming was the starting point for our vacation in Yunnan Province. We spent an afternoon in the city. We strolled the delightful Green Lake Park and ate on the street-side patio of one of the restaurants across from the park. The next morning we visited the main target of our stay in Kunming, the Stone Forest, a national scenic area about 75 miles away. Supposedly, there's an old saying, "If you have visited Kunming without seeing the Stone Forest, you have wasted your time." We didn't partake of enough of Kunming's other attractions to vouch for the truth of that, but our time in the Stone Forest was definitely not wasted.

More photos from Kunming after the jump.

Shanghai, the Adventure Begins

From 2012 03 Shanghai

Our spring break vacation began and ended in Shanghai. Last year we spent a couple of days there. But this year, Shanghai was only our jumping off point. We spent more time in the airport, taxis and subway trains than in the city itself. So, this first installment of our spring break trip report is a short one.

We took the Shanghai Metro subway from our hotel out near Pudong airport to downtown. It took about an hour. It cost 5 yuan (about 75 cents) for a one-way fare. It was new, clean, fast, convenient. It was crowded, but not packed. It's the kind of system that America could use more of.

More photos from Shanghai after the jump.

Review: Gandhi

Amazon

From Gandhi: The True Man Behind Modern India, by Jad Adams:

Gandhi did not in the end command his followers to commit suicide, but in the light of the late-twentieth-century cults of Jim Jones at Jonestown, David Koresh at Waco and Marshall Applewhite at Rancho Santa Fe, Gandhi's exhortations have an uncomfortably modern ring."

Gandhi, by Jad Adams: Eccentric, mystical, primitive and a bit creepy. Your crazy uncle let loose, who wows the world. C+

After the jump, my review.

Review: Swamplandia!

Amazon

Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell: Teen girl's tale of gator wrestlers, ghosts, a birdman, and family. Another world, universal feelings. B+

From Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell:


Our mother performed in starlight. Whose innovation this was I never discovered. Probably it was Chief Bigtree's idea, and it was a good one -- to blank the follow spot and let a sharp moon cut across the sky, unchaperoned; to kill the microphone; to leave the stage lights' tin eyelids scrolled and give the tourists in the stands a chance to enjoy the darkness of our island; to encourage the whole stadium to gulp air along with Swamplandia!'s star performer, the world-famous alligator wrestler Hilola Bigtree."

Swamplandia! is a tale about coming of age in one of those faded, family-owned roadside attractions from another era. In this case, it's Swamplandia! and to get there requires a ferry ride through the Florida mangrove swamps to an island "thirty-odd miles off the grid of mainland lights."

After the jump, my review.

Real Heroes, Less Suspicious

Two years ago, the Richardson Coalition, a political action committee formed to elect its preferred candidates to city council, created something called the "Real Heroes" award. Their voting procedure, requiring the public to submit their email addresses to the PAC, smacked of an email harvesting scheme. Many people were suspicious of the PAC's motives (and by many people, I mean me and by suspicious, I mean dead certain). I pointed it out at the time. A year later, the next cycle of voting showed no changes to the voting procedure. I again complained about it here.

After the jump, how's it look in round three?