17th September 2010
Shuher
Another Naxi town, but much less tourist orientated. We walked around the less busy parts of the town and saw a private museum run by a 5th generation Horse Gang Leader. His ancestors traded tea along the Tea Horse Trail from Nepal to Shuher. He still trades in tea and we had some really nice tea there and bought 2 tea bricks.

15th September 2010
Lijiang
A Naxi town. The town is very pretty – lots of well-maintained traditional wooden houses, but the whole town has been given over to tourism and is like visiting a Disney version of China. However, even here there are some great places. We visited the Mu residence. The Mu family were the ruling family in the town for many years and their house is like a palace. Also, there is an ancient concert hall in the town where an orchestra of mostly very old men play Tang dynasty music.

13th September 2010
We joined a tour to take a trip on the huge lake next to Dali. After the lake we were supposed to visit a very large temple – the biggest in China, but the guide was determined to make as much money as possible (her commission from shops) and kept stopping at different shops – tea, silver, jade – and we did not get to the temple until only one hour before it was due to close. This is a big problem with tours in China. I think this will be the last we go on – they make the visits cheaper, but the price one has to pay with waiting around in the car parks of large shops is too high.

12th September 2010
Dali
Dali is a Bai minority village that is very pretty, it has some wall intact and an impressive gate, but it has become quite tourist orientated in some of its streets. But the village is quite big so it is possible to walk around in quieter places.

11th September 2010
Visited the Golden Temple on the outskirts of Kunming. The temple is very nice and has a cable car to go up the mountain to get to it. The cable cars are large toboggans that run in between guard rails – they go quite fast and have lots of twists and turns in order to make it up the steep slopes.

Our last day in Kunming – we will return in a week after we visit some local villages.

10th September 2010
We went with Julia, a waitress from the hotel, to the Stone Forest. She grew up near to there, so was a really good guide. The forest is a huge area with stone pillars that are the result of 200 million years of erosion. It is all very strange – it is even possible to see perfect fault lines that accurately run across pillars standing in a row – as if the rock in between them were still there.

9th September 2010
We met Lin Amaiia who we contacted via Couchsurfing. She gavus loads of information about Kunming and the area around and also Vietnam. We had lunch with her near to the university.


8th September 2010
Kunming
All day on the bus from Anshun and we arrived in the early evening. The Jinjiang Hotel is nice though and is fairly near to the train and bus station which is useful for when we leave. We had a very nice meal in the hotel restaurant.


7th September 2010
Anshun
Visited Huangguoshu waterfalls – they are spectacular – there are several big falls in one area. They charge admission fees to see them though – £18 each and then a further £10 for transport – far too expensive. We also visited the Ye San caves which are pretty good.

5th September 2010
We visited Longjiang to see the Dhong Village there. Their costume is beautiful and their singing is fantastic – their singing is harsh but they stay in tune and harmonise with each other so well.

Congjiang Village – the women all seem to dress in traditional costume and even still keep their hair in the style of the Qing dynasty.

Zhaozhing Village – Dhong village. We heard music by local musicians. It has been supported by a Norwegian fund and is in great condition and very beautiful.

Longlee town. A walled town that was built by soldiers during the Ming Dynasty. Their descendents still live there. The wall is still intact, as are the four gates. The buildings are made of stone and were obviously built very strongly to have lasted so long. The town was a garrison to guard the main routes from South East Asia into China. It was attacked and the first garrison was wiped out by the Dhong people not long after they built the town. The replacement force took the town again finished building it and stayed there.

Chingping Village – Dhong Village. This used to be a very prosperous village for 500 years until trade routes changed because of modern transport. There are some old houses that were built by rich traders and quite a bit of stone was used to build the village. But now the village is dying. The population is ageing, there are a small number of children being looked after by grandparents, but it seems the village will not survive once the present adult population begins to die. We heard a group of 4 elderly women sing – it was beautiful.

Hon Yang – Miao village. The drive to the village was fantastic – rolling hills, rice terraces and we drove through clouds when we drove through one of the passes.

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