China Entry The Fourteenth: Out of Lijiang

We wake up late, have a leisurely breakfast, and then Ho meets up with us at the Grand Lijiang around 10:00am for our last seven hours in Lijiang, which has been an incredible highlight of the trip. Oh, but we are not daunted by the mere seven hour time frame. You have no idea how much can be done in a mere seven hours!

It is, by the way, raining. As it will be for the remainder of our trip. By the end, I have a complete love/hate relationship with the rain.

We begin with a hike up the hill, past the Deer Source Inn, to a newly built pagoda tower on top of a high point of land. Though the construction is new, it's still quite beautiful, and the views from the top are outstanding. In one direction you can see the painted rooftops of Old Lijiang, and in the other direction you can see the contrasting rooftops of the new part of the city. It's well worth the hike.















Then, down into Old Lijiang we go, where I eat again -- a yummy, sweet Naxi pancake from a street vendor.



Lisa also realizes that we can purchase bugs to eat, but "Fear Factor" got cancelled for a reason, folks.



How wants to track down a local artist who is friends with a friend. We trek to the address given, which actually turns out to be the artist's mother's store where she makes and sells small blue communist era style hats. The woman herself is old -- we guess in her seventies -- but she is flat out stunningly beautiful, despite having lived an obviously hard life (she would have experienced the cultural revolution). In fact, the two exceptionally old women bickering/buying hats from her are also stunningly beautiful for their ages.



The woman sends somebody to get her son, who greets Ho warmly and invites us to his home to site for a while and see his art. He and Ho also discuss his impending trip to the US for an exhibition in LA (he's been exhibiting outside of China for about two years now). His artwork is reminiscent of ancient classical style and it's absolutely beautiful. We spend the next hour or so looking at the beautiful pieces, and then the lovely man gives us some Chinese poem scrolls. He's the most gentle man. He's so lovely. You so feel warm in his presence.

It's also engaging to watch the artist and Ho talk. They have that instant "artist's connection" that translates clearly even though Lisa and I cannot understand a word they are saying.







I do believe that Ho would have been happy to stay here all afternoon long, but as the afternoon started to get late and the rain started to dump down even harder, we ventured out to wrap up some last minute ... shopping.

Foreign devils must consume!

At 5:00pm sharp, the driver is ready to go to drive us to Dali. It is, perhaps, the most punctual start we get at any point on the trip.

The drive is lovely, though I sleep through most of it.

We arrive back in Dali around 9:00pm and head straight to the MCA.

For some reason known only to God and Buddha, a film is being shot at the MCA. This means that unless we want to stay awake all night to the sounds of the film crew (which we don't), we need to upgrade our room to the "suite" in the front part of the hotel. After some bartering, Lisa and Ho get the room at a reasonable rate, so we go for it.

Upon first entering the room, the room appears FANTASTIC. The three beds are split over two rooms. There are books and ample electronic plugs and a table with chairs! But then, of course, there is the bathroom. I'm not sure that in any way I can describe the odor that somehow creeps into the bathroom by morning, except to say that something must have flown in the open window and dropped a dead animal carcass in there. It was so bad that this was my process for brushing my teeth the next morning:

I stood outside of the bathroom and took a big gulp of air and held my breath. Then I ran into the bathroom, turned the sink water on and ran back out.

I took another big gulp of air, ran into the bathroom and wet my toothbrush, and then ran back out again.

Standing outside of the bathroom door, I apply toothpaste and brush my teeth.

I take another huge gulp of air (which, for the record, is very hard to do with a mouth full of toothpaste) and run in to spit. I do not rinse!

And then...off to Guilin!