Lijiang is another valley city surrounded by high mountains. It’s a 4 hour drive from Dali through the mountains and fields. Lijiang is the poorest area we’ve been to so far. The land surrounding the town is of poorer quality than in Dali. There are just over 1.8 million people in the area, 57% of which are minorities. The largest minority here are the Naxi who are related to Tibetans. The old town is a real gem. It is my favorite of all places I have seen in China so far. Although there are many tourist shops, there is no aggressive selling and there are just as many local shops as tourist ones. They have preserved the old buildings and winding streets instead of proudly replacing them with brand new horrible modern buildings. The old town is protected as a historical sight by UNESCO.
The old town is crisscrossed by 3 streams. The water flows down from the surrounding mountains and seems relatively clean. The villagers wash everything in the streams – clothes, pots, mops etc. There is an atmosphere that makes you want to sit in the outdoor cafes and watch the world go by.
The Naxi religion is called Dongba and is based on worship of nature and ancestors. Every mountain and plant has a god. They don’t have temples because they have altars at home. While the Naxi have their own language, only the priests can read and write it. It is a pictorial language which looks a bit like hieroglyphics. There was an interesting temple which we saw which mixed Buddhism, Taoism and Dongba.
A short drive from the town, we took a cable chair up the mountain to see the view. It was fairly cold and you could see snow a bit further up as well as the tallest mountain which was 18,000 ft. Most of us rented thick colorful jackets for the ride up.
At the top, there is a spruce forest and then a field. The Naxi people dress in bright capes and enormous fox fur hats and perform local songs for people wandering around the field.
Animal rights are not a priority in China. We stopped by the side of the road to watch roof tiles being made. They have a blindfolded water buffalo who must walk in a pit to keep the clay malleable. He was obviously distressed and when he stops walking someone kicks him in the face. At the hotel in Dali, they had lots of chirping birds in cages in the lobby. I thought they made such a nice sound, but when I walked over, there were medium sized birds in tiny cages so they couldn’t even spread their wings. They were hopping around madly. While a number of people have pet dogs and cats, you never see them petting or playing with the pets. I suppose with a country full of people who are so poor, animal rights simply don’t exist. For that matter, old women carry enormous baskets of bricks and old men pull carts with many times their weight. It’s all rather sad.