Our train to Lijiang this time was very early in the morning and we had to leave the guest house at 5 am. On the plus side, we got to see the sunrise on the way.
Guys were very sleepy, and although at first they were not really impressed with the train's interior, after a while it became less important, and they happily fell a sleep.
Because we had to leave so early, by the time we got to Lijiang, everybody was very hungry and we decided to start the day with sampling the local dishes. One of them was mushroom soup - very tasty.
Another - some kind of dumplings, but then mixed into the omelette, also not bad for a breakfast meal.
The ancient town of Lijiang is much bigger than the one we saw earlier in Dali, to walk around, it will take a complete day. It was a good thing we started early :-)
The streets form quite a maze and while we were looking for the Mu's residence, a "must-see" according to the guide, we ended up at the local market.
Many "products" here are sold still alive. They will kill it if necessary right in front of you.
Everything is being used for food. This woman is putting intestines on sate sticks to be used for BBQ... :-)
Final product, I am wondering what happened to the black chicken to get it s black... Because it's definitely not burned, just the meat itself is.
Many local people still dress in traditional clothes, not for show, just because they choose to.
After the market, we found our way to the Mu's residence, the family that owned (and may be still owns) half of the town buildings and businesses. Needless to say, their own place was huge and the gardens & buildings went all the way up the mountain.
View from the highest point of the Mu's residence on the residence itself and the surrounding building.
So far, we spent almost 2 hours walking around and we still had the largest part of town to see.
The main square.
Lijiang's ancient town is serviced by multiple water canals and they all come together to a central point. The houses along the canals have their own separate little bridges.
The main waterwheel
When we got to the main waterwheel we accidentally exited the old part, which, as it turned out, had a paid entrance. We didn't pay because we entered too early, but now they were demanding tickets. Luckily, the guard on the way we came out wasn't paying too much attention and we flushed some other tickets in front of him and got back in for free.
While walking around we found a large street market.
Some stalls were selling weird food, like insects, bugs, worms, etc..
Oleg was keen on trying at least something)) His choice was a grasshopper.
We opted for a more safer choice))
Next, we also wanted to go to a village close buy, called Baisha, that was specializing in handmade textiles and was famous for it's local miracle doctor.
At a glance, it looked almost the same like Dali, but with snow top mountains in the background.
Here locals were also wearing their own handmade clothes.
The patterns are really beautiful.
The doctor is also hard to miss as his "office" is fully signposted with multiple articles about him and his achievements.
The rest of the village:
Local craftsmmen
There were no taxis around for us to take back to Lijiang, so we had to take the local bus.
Back in Lijiang it was getting more and more crowded. We decided to walk around and look for a place to eat.
Those two are CANDY MAKERS, they hit the nuts/seeds and sugar so hard, until it becomes one great candy - very tasty!
The streets at night...
The temples of the main square are converted into disco establishments at night.
We closed off the evening at one of the little restaurants with the new kind of beer - Shangrila-La, named after the place that we were going to next. But before that, we still had a 2-day hiking trip ahead of us in the Tiger Leaping Gorge.
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