December 7th, 2007 
Sheila Simkin Lijiang is separated into old and new towns. The old town is where you want to spend your time. We would walk out of the Grand Lijiang Hotel (very comfortable with wonderful American breakfasts), continue straight ahead across the busy new town main street and three blocks away was the old town. The old town was very small at the time, filled with mazes of cobbled streets and alleys, houses, courtyards, little bridges over the delightful canals…no cars allowed…another “Venice.” Lijiang is considered to have the best preserved ancient town in China and is a UNESCO Heritage Site. We had three days to wander around with a little touring mixed in.
Lijiang is the capital of the Naxi Kingdom and until recently the Naxi were a matriarchal society with its own pictographic language, bright blue clothes and ancient music. We immediately set about buying pictograph weavings for grandchildren…colorful and interesting. One photo not taken is still in my mind to this day…a group of Naxi women dressed in traditional blue, sitting inside a house, playing mah jong… What a photo that would have made!
Every evening there was a performance of the Naxi Orchestra. All 20-24 members are Naxi and play a type of Taoist music lost elsewhere in China. But the highlight for us was just watching the ancient members enter the small “Ancient Town Inn” theater, teetering down the aisles, heading for their seats on the podiium — ages ranging between 70-90 years old! One member spoke English and acted as master of ceremonies, calling out their ages, and telling about each musical piece. A few of the more unusual musical piece names were – The Sheep On The Hill…Song Of The Bound Feet; and played on ancient instruments. There was the Ten Chiming Gongs (over 200 years old)…and Pipe With Curved Neck (a wind instrument) just to name two.
Baisha is a small, quiet agricultural village outside of Lijiang and was the capital of the Naxi kingdom. We just walked through there and the Lonquan area to see typical Naxi areas.
There were excellent restaurants in Lijiang and we greatly enjoyed spending the days walking around the narrow side-streets, people watching and shopping. So glad that Lijiang was the last stop and it quickly became our favorite town on this trip. Completely charming with the narrow streets, canals and Naxi people.
Another plus was the great amount of “things” to buy. Walking into the center of Lijiang, we were astounded by the number of stands in a big square. I immediately spotted a huge, hammered metal teapot (Naxi and “old”) but the seller wanted too much money and wouldn’t come down. By the end of the trip, the teapot was still there…a little more bargaining and it was ours. Every narrow street around the open market was wall-to-wall with souvenir stands, heavy on the embroidery.
Another problem when we left Kunming by plane. The teapot showed up on x-ray and we then spent an unpleasant 10 minutes or so while person after person was called over to inspect it. Our guide said they were positive it was “old” but had enough doubts to let us go…finally…with our teapot. One of the Customs people told guide he was very angry with us because we didn’t have a receipt…as if they were giving receipts at the stands!
It was also nice to eat in real restaurants with chairs instead of little stools… The Well Bistro had friendly owners and great food, all set in this lovely restaurant with all-wood interiors.
Our Yunnan exploration ended on a very high note. It wasn’t until Lijiang that we saw other Westerners and even then, very few. I understand that Lijiang is now on every tourist’s trip to Yunnan and has become overcrowded. It would have been anti-climatic if we had started the Yunnan trip in Lijiang and watched the hotels deteriorate heading down south.
Black Dragon Pool is on the northern edge of town with the Fayun (Five Phoenix) Pavilion. This Naxi pavilion dates from 1601 and the roof is supposedly in the shape of phoenixes.
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