We started 8am to avoid long queues at the cable car. But hey, we're in China- First of all you have to stop at the Naxi National Center to buy tickets for the cable car.
And you're no allowed to drive with the car to the valley station of the cable car, which is around 6km away. No, you have to take the bus. And by coincidence, the buses are not departing that often, so we had plenty of time to explore the Naxi culture. Th Naxi are a minority of around 280.000 People, living in the area between Ljiang and Zhongdian. They've got their won Language, Characters and own witch man, called Dongba. Besides the information and a lot of Naxi stuff, they also sold oxygen in cans.
Roughly 3 hours later we were able to board the bus to the valley stations at 3.300m above sea level. Surprise, surprise, there was a nice long queue. At least there were Tom & Jerry movies playing at the monitors. Would have been nice to see a live picture of the mountain station (4.506m), we still hoped for sun shine at the top.
The luck wasn't with us, still pretty misty. Unbelievable. And everywhere booths with traders selling oxygen, chocolate, water, red bull and sausages. That's service. The jade dragon mountain is by the way 5.591 m high but somehow they managed to end the cable car at 4.503m. Ok, the nest stairways, 150m to the glacier. And no, it's really possible without any oxygen.
The temperature was around 10°C so it was do-able without the special thermo clothing which was rented in the valley. Another picture and down to the valley. The cable car is produced by Leitner, a known brand from Italy which took away a lot of our concerns.....
Next stop was at a ancient Naxi valley called Yushui in which the ethnologist Dr. Rock lived from 1922 - 1949. He studied the Naxi culture and collected a lot of scripts. As he was thrown out of China in 1949 he carried plenty of the scripts, all his writings and documentation of traditions, antiques, weapons to the US. After that the cultural revolution came and he wasn't allowed back in China until his death in the 60ties. The Chinese government is nowadays pretty proud of the culture of the Naxis, even you cannot read the name of Dr. Rock very often.
This is the house of Dr. Rock, today a museum. Inside it's forbidden to take pictures. The rest of the village is by the way still settled by the Naxi people, living in their ancient traditions.
It's already past 2pm and there was no lunch till now. In the next village we ordered quite a bit meal, for sure "without spicy hot". This lead to suffering from dyspnea and heavy sweating. We were very happy not to try the spicy version. Our guide Lilly and the driver took plenty of chilly powder cause it's not possible to eat anything without spices at all.....
Satiated and happy we drove back to Lijiang to discover the ancient town. Around 30.000 people are living in this part of the town and a few of them are still Naxi. The NAxi found out, that it's very profitable to rent out the old apartments and houses. With this money it's quite easy to build a house in old Naxi traditions a couple of kilometers away from Lijiang. Perfect.
The old town is divided by 3 rivers. That's pretty nice for the orientation, just follow the river against the stream and you find easily out. There are alot plenty of wells, everyone with a couple of vessels for free use.
In sum it's around 365 bridges in Lijiangs ancient town. Our guide Lilly wasn't sure if this is coincidentally our planned. Anyway, a lot of carvings in Naxi characters we also found.
Copper ore is one of the plentifully raw materials in Yunnan. Correspondingly there is a big choice of copper ware on the markets. Unfortunately the pans and pots are too bulky for the plane.
A typical pharmacy is obviously also in the town. Which medicine would have been the right one for Regina, Stephan didn't asked. Maybe showing of the pictures is enough.
We are used to the standard animals for cooking or already prepared. But there are some improvement steps necessary for the pig-grill...
Tea, fried food or mixed pickles are the basic food stuff. Not only at the market, overall in the city are the food booths open 24/7.
If you'd like to eat your vegetable - bitter melon in this case - directly on the market can wash it at the wells. Every well is splitted into 3 wash basins: one for the drinking water supply, one to was veggies or fruits and the third to wash hairs or doing all the other washing stuff.
Traditionally cooking stove is fired by coal. Logically there is also a coal trader. And as all the important jobs it's done by women. It's quite simple at the Naxi: Man are thinking, talking, tea drinking and smoking, the women are doing the field work, construction work, housework, education the kids, all the small things in the world. Let's see how long the Naxi boys find women to marry.....
In the town center we saw some horseman of the Naxi. Oh, I forgot, the man are also horse back riding, not only thinking. In former times the Naxi was an important part of the tea road. So the snow tea and the horses are quite famous in China, Tibet and India.
These Horse man doesn't look like real Chinese. Well, it's Naxis. We were thinking about explaining to our guide that there is also a minority in Germany: the Bavarians. Own language, own clothings and tradition like the world famous October beer festival. It was really a temptation....
Hot the weather was developing and when Regina was able to participate at the activities, well thats a completely other story.......
Flowers and
blossoms...
...are uncountable in Yunnan. Here a small preview to the
picture collection......
