Our big trip
A few thoughts and photos from our travels
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Day 126 – Healthy Life Zen
30th December: Dali, China We had a lovely chill-out morning at the hotel before venturing off to find some food. Kaja had seen there might be a veggie café/shop about half an hour walk north. We crossed the death-trap main road and took the back streets, through an endless market of sugar cane and fruit.…
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Day 125 – No bus south
29th December: Shaxi, China to Dali, China It was another sunny but smoky morning in the bowl of mountains where Shaxi sits. Crop burning seemed to have accelerated today and, as well as the smell lingering even inside, the surrounding hills were barely visible. We needed to get a bus back over the pass to…
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Day 124 – The Tea Horse Road
28th December: Shaxi, China Shaxi is the only surviving market town on the Tea Horse Road, sometimes known as the Southern Silk Road. For millennia, traders have carried tea north from Pu’er across the mountains of Yunnan into Tibet and beyond into Nepal and India. Shaxi is primarily Bai ethnic with some Naxi, Hui, and…
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Day 123 – Crossing the watershed divide
27th December: Lijiang, China to Shaxi, China Yesterday’s neck tweak has gotten a lot worse and is excruciating with the smallest movement. Unfortunately, today also happens to be the first time on our China leg that we’re moving on to a new place by bus rather than train! I’m just glad to have gotten the…
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Day 122 – Tiger Leaping Gorge
26th December: Lijiang, China On the TV at the breakfast buffet was live news, as opposed to the recording from November that was playing a few days ago. The main stories were primarily wars, but it was interesting to use the live translation app on my phone to understand the narratives that were being portrayed.…
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Day 121 – Naxi life in Lijiang
25th December: Lijiang, China I woke up early with food poisoning. Merry Christmas! After most of the day in the room, we did get out for a wander around Lijiang late in the afternoon. This time, we entered the old town via the market at the south-east corner. This is a very fertile region with…
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Day 120 – The First Bend on the Yangtze
24th December: Lijiang, China We had a very chilled morning here on Christmas Eve. For lunch, the buffet around the corner beckoned. As usual it was delicious! Kaja wasn’t feeling well, so went back to the room for a quiet day. The trip we had planned from Lijiang that she was least fussed about was…
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Day 119 – Shangri-La
23rd December: Lijiang, China It got very chilly outside overnight! It was definitely below freezing, although the dryness of the air in our room was our concern. Neither of us really slept very well and I was amazed it was time to get up, and not about 2am, when Kaja got up for a shower.…
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Day 118 – To the plateau of northern Yunnan
22nd December: Kunming, China to Lijiang, China Older train stations in China are a bit more haphazard than the giant modern high-speed ones. However, this is often a good thing as they have more options for local food, with established vendors and street food stalls instead of fast food franchises. This was the case at…
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Day 117 – A colourful solstice
21st December: Kunming, China When out for morning coffee, I wandered the nearest fancy shopping centre where Christmas songs were playing on a loop. To my amazement, I found an icebreaker merino store – they don’t officially have any in China (or the rest of Asia) but apparently there are a handful of ‘touch stores’…