We left Hunnan and rattled on to Yunnan, to China’s equivalent to Venice, the very picturesque town of Lijiang.
The cooking in Yunnan is similar to neighbouring Sichuan, which is one of my favourite kitchens. Ma Po Tofu (vegetarian version) is one of my absolute favourite dishes of all time. I’ve had it countless times in China but the best one I have ever tasted is actually in Stockholm, at Lao Wai, hence one of the best restaurants in the world in my opinion.
Lijiang made my mind perpetuate “There is a willow grows aslant a brook” which I think is such a beautiful sentence. It is a quote from Hamlet when Gertrude tells Laertes of Ophelia’s death. I know, I know, I sound awfully pretentious but I bet we all quote Shakespeare more often than we think, since it is entangled into the English as well as the Swedish language. See? We are all pretentious together.
In Central Asia people had such good phone manners, but in China they are almost as obsessed as the Europeans (I think Swedes are the worst). I freaking love internet, but it’s got out of hand when you get bumped into everyday by people that walk and scroll at the same time, or worse, when people can’t keep their hands off it during conversation/dinner/optional social interaction.
Speaking of internet, China’s internet is so incredibly controlled, even more so than the last time we were here, four years ago. It is so difficult to cope without Google! It feels like losing a really smart, although sometimes slightly mythomaniac, friend. But what is obviously a lot worse, is how it represents China’s undemocratic society, bringing thoughts to Mao’s former terror.
This is Jade Dragon Mountain, I love how “Crouching Tiger, Hidden dragon” that name is.
We left Lijiang to go hiking, on our way we were met by a gigantic land slide blocking the road. Luckily no one was injured, we were pretty close to our destination so we just climbed over it and walked the last few kilometers.
We were going to hike along the magnificent Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest canyons in the world.
When we finally got down to the bottom of the canyon we realised that we had to go through a nerve wrecking pass, vertiginously high up the cliff. You can see the narrow rim of it up to the left.
We were so freaking scared that we almost turned back, parts of it didn’t even have that shitty little fence!
Afterwords we were completely high of the adrenaline rush, which made the wondrous subtropical scenery even more beautiful in an almost psychedelic way. We walked through bamboo forests…
…waterfalls…
…wuthering hights and steaming rivers.
Almost as good as hiking, is ending up by a fire place with ice cold beer and Tibetan style yak-cheese burritos in Walnut village.