Lijiang/Shangri-la (Part II)

The train pushed off, and we talked and played cards until they shut off the lights on the train, which was around 12. Then I climbed into the 2^nd level bunk bed (there were three levels of bunks) and went to sleep. I enjoyed every minute of being on that train. Even though it was tight living, just the fact that it was a train that had beds on it was the coolest thing to me. When I woke up early in the morning, I looked out the window and saw big mountains looming in the near distance. Here’s what I took from my window (you can see the glare of my camera and the curtains):

When the train stopped, we quickly piled out of the train and outside. Min Dan had hired a driver to drive around Lijiang and Shangri-la for the day…and to be honest, if you want to actually SEE the area and observe its natural scenery, not just go on planned tours where tour buses take you or actual museum-ish areas or developed areas where taxis can take, then a hired driver is the best way to go here in Lijiang…and they actually are quite affordable, if I remember correctly from what Min Dan told me it’s like 100 to 200 kuai per day. It’s a good deal, because they’ll take you wherever you want to go and stop whenever you want to stop (to take pictures or to buy something interesting being sold on the side of the road).

But anyway, before we hopped in the car to go off, Min Dan and I went to get tickets for the return journey. Thing is…I hadn’t brought my passport, which means I wasn’t going to be able to ride the night train like I did coming here. I was quite certain that I hadn’t brought it, and it was nowhere in my tan schoolbag that I bring everywhere with me. I was going to have to ride the day train by myself and stay in Lijiang another night…by myself. Min Dan and the others were leaving the night of the next day. I wasn’t worried about doing that, but I was definitely banging myself in the head for this mistake. So Min Dan is like worried for me and I’m feeling bad as the driver drives us to the inn, located in the Old City of Lijiang.

First some background on Lijiang. Before, it wasn’t an unbelievably well-known city, but after the 199_ earthquake, it reached world-wide awareness. Because of its newfound fame, Lijiang was transformed into quite a tourist town, and the Old City is a re-done version of the typical style of the Lijiang city, if I’m not mistaken. Unfortunately, you need a map because the roads are NOT straight, and because every part of the Old City has a similar style, it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know your way around. In addition, Lijiang and Shangri-la are home to one of China’s special ethnic minorities, a tribe called the Nakhi (Na-xi in Mandarin). When I went back to Kunming, I found out that my pen-pal friend Shujuan actually was a Nakhi ethnic minority. Pretty cool.

Here’s a picture of the my first glimpse of the Old City (Min Dan is on the right and Mei Nv is on the left):

Anyways, we then got to the inn. It was an unbelievably adorable inn. It was very small, and the rooms were right outside…not like many hotels where the doors lead to an indoor hallway…these doors led right outside to a cute little Chinese traditional courtyard. And the sky was grayish, as if it was about to rain, and it really gave the area a very Chinese ambience. There were Chinese-style carvings on the wall and the ground was like a mosaic and it was just really really cute. The room was cute too. Me, Min Dan, and Mei Nv stayed in one room and Wuyi stayed in another. Here are some pictures.

Here’s the courtyard…that’s Wuyi in the front.

Here’s me and Mei Nv in front of our room.

So then we set up our stuff in the room and got ready to set off and see Lijiang and Shangri-la. As I was setting up my stuff and waiting for the others, I start rummaging through my backpack (not my schoolbag) to make sure I knew exactly what I had brought along. As I was rummaging, I got to the middle compartment of the backpack and guess what I pulled out? I pulled out my passport AND my student ID! Well, I guess you can say we were all pretty relieved. After we left the inn, we quickly bought a ticket on the night train for me and continued on our adventure.