Yunnan-imously impressed

Yunnan, bordered by Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Tibet, is a pretty diverse slice of China, with lush rice paddies and stark craggy mountains in equal measure. For a long time it was considered hardly part of China at all, with successive Chinese empires barely holding onto it from the control of barbarians. The diversity in landscapes and neighbours is underscored by the fact more than half of the ethnic minority groups in China (i.e. groups that are not Han Chinese) live in Yunnan.

Kunming is the capital of the province, and we arrived late at night to our cute ramshackle hostel. Famously laid back Kunming has been one of China's "most liveable" cities for years, and calls itself the spring city for its great climate and beautiful parks. Liveability for us starts with noodles, and breakfast absolutely delivered. We wandered into a tiny noodle place and had spicy sesame cold noodles for breakfast, followed by a homemade custard with black sugar.

We then strolled through Green Lake Park and did a spot of shopping for our Nepal trip (a bit nervously with snow, altitude and sore legs looming ever nearer), and then decided to make a dash for a late afternoon visit to the Bamboo Temple on the outskirts of the city. Perched on a hill, the 19th century temple is surrounded by bamboo forest and fronted by some seriously ancient cyprus trees. A ceremony was taking place when we arrived and we sat and appreciated the chanting and drums. We ended up having to do some masterful charades to get the keys to see the real reason we were there - the 500 luohan, created by a master Sichuanese sculptor and his apprentices, each a painstaking life-sized representation of a human man. Some are relaxed, some angry, some riding giant shrimp (??), some eating, some sleeping, and some interacting with one another. They are an attempt to catalogue the entirety of human existence. Rumour has it that the sculptor based some of the less flattering luohan on a few of his colleagues who weren't super happy about it: he disappeared mysteriously very soon after its unveiling. A shame, as his work was both incredibly impressive and bafflingly bizarre. It's VERY bad luck to take photos of the luohan, so you'll just have to be satisfied with the temple grounds itself.

The next day we visited the Yunnan Provincial Museum, a behemoth of rust coloured metal lurking in the suburbs. Yunnan is an archaeological hot spot, with - among other important finds - the earliest known fossil with a jaw in the world (the prehistoric fish guiyu oneiros) and the oldest prehistoric human fossils in China. There was juuuuust enough English for us to get the gist, so we were happy enough.

After another day in Kunming exploring, getting our hair cut and eating, we headed to Heijing (not to be confused with the rather larger Beijing). Heijing is essentially stuck in a time warp: for millenia it was one of the most important towns in the whole region, having natural salt wells (discovered when someone's black ox was licking at a puddle in the ground - memorialised, though abbreviated, in the name Heijing which means black well). Heijing's salt industry was at times the source of more than half of the entire province's tax revenue. When more efficient salt production methods were perfected a few hundred years ago the town fossilised, becoming a sleepy little village dominated by rickety alleyways, silent temples and ramshackle shops and houses.

We stayed in a pretty cool guesthouse called the Wang Family Mansion - though the room was fairly grim, the courtyard was a dream.

Next we headed on to Dali - squashed between Erhai Lake and the Cang Mountains, the very tail end of the Himalayas, it's an ancient city that used to be the capital of an enormous empire. The old town dates to the 14th century and has been beautifully restored and preserved. Interestingly, the majority of the town is populated by the Naxi minority, which is a matriarchal culture where family wealth is passed through mothers and sisters.

We cycled to the Three Pagodas, deciding to take a punt on the enormous complex despite a thunderstorm rolling in. Though many of the buildings are rebuilt, the tallest pagoda was built 1,200 years ago when Dali was the capital of a Buddhist kingdom stretching into Myanmar and Sichuan. It was pretty spectacular, and we managed to avoid getting struck by lightning.

The next day we spent largely around Erhai Lake, a fairly uninspiring stretch of water that was most interesting for its domestic tourism appeal: insane amounts of photoshoots for both wedding shoots and women with props...

The views of the Cang Mountains on the way back into Dali were pretty great though.

So the next day we decided to do a practice hike for our Nepal odyssey by climbing to the cloud path, an amazingly manicured path across the face of Cangshan - a small mountain at the end of the Himalayas which the Chinese call "the eve of the roof of the world". With some beautiful views and lovely waterfall pools, we had a beautiful long walk in the sun, but didn't manage to spot any red pandas!!

From there, we headed deeper into the mountains to take on our next big hike: the Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest canyons in the world, where the Jinsha River, a major tributary of the mighty Yangtze, cuts between the Jade Dragon Mountain and the Haba Snow Mountain. We walked for three days through the gorge, staying in beautiful guest houses with spectacular views of the mountains, befriending goats, and eating liquid Tibetan cheese with deep fried bread.

On the last day of the hike, we dropped down to the narrowest, most raging part of the river, where you could barely hear yourself think over the din of the water.

Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YgMHOmu0Vk&feature=youtu.be

To top it all off, we decided to take the shortcut up 'the sky ladder' from the riverside to the road. 170 steps on a rickety old ladder up a cliff. Probably fairly sturdy, but I couldn't convince my legs and arms of that half way up, pouring sweat and having full body shakes.... But we made it!

Embedded content: https://youtu.be/U9GJt4Rv0dA

From there, we took a bus to Lijiang, a very populsr domestic tourist destination (it sees more than 8 million tourists per year in the 5 square km old town - and in parts of our trip there it felt like all of them were on the same street as us...). Built in the 13th century, it is the most preserved ancient town in China - though it has been extensively touched up and entirely turned into shops, bars, inns and more shops. Food was great though, including the famous Naxi BBQ (the signature dish of the local minority group) and a series of incredible mushroom dishes.

We spent a fairly pleasant few days there, strolling the streets, visiting the temples and chatting with the man who ran our hostel, but were pretty happy to head off after a couple of days - en route to Sichuan!