China - Lijiang and Guilin
Following Tibet, we spent two days in Lijiang and two days in Guilin. While after Tibet, it seems like anything else might be a disappointment, these two places were both interesting in their own way.
Lijiang is old city in Yunnan province, and the center of the Naxi minority. The city was badly damaged by an earthquake about 10 years ago. After the reconstruction, it became a major tourist destination. It’s pretty easy to see it why people like to visit - the town is low-key and relaxing to visit.
While Lijiang is pretty far south, it’s on a plateau a mile and a half up, so the weather was cool and crisp. We stayed in an Inn in the old town, and it was a really nice chance to relax after hiking ourselves to exhaustion in Tibet.
We went to Guilin at the very end of the trip. It’s a city on the Li River, deep in China’s south. Once again, it was sweltering hot and wet, but after a week of high altitude, it was nice to be back at sea level.
The Li River was beautiful. The Karst (limestone) terrain was certainly unique. And, the food was really a great — lots of Cantonese-style dishes instead of the same Sichuan things over and over again.
sidenote: This post is way overdue as internet access became more and more of an issue, and I ended up nice and sick when I first got home. Now, I’m catching up!