Lijiang Day 6 (0424) - Hike in Liming/First Bend of Yangtze

Our last full day in Lijiang was amazing. We had been talking about what to do for this day all week and it was between seeing Tiger Leaping Gorge or going to Liming. All we knew was that Justin said Tiger Leaping Gorge is better to see on a three day hike rather than pushing it into one day, and we knew that Liming had "red rocks." We decided on Liming because it sounded interesting, none of us had been there and it was less touristy (which was very important to us). We grabbed something to eat and then sat in the van for three hours through the mountains and along the Yangtze River.

We arrived at Liming and began our climb up one of the peaks. Since the area is like one big park with a variety of mountains to climb up, there were stairs the entire way. Unfortunately I needed to use the bathroom on the way and found a squatter. I have been to some foul squatters, but this one took the cake. Apparently they were not getting a lot of tourists, so they saw no reason to clean the bathrooms or make sure the water was going down. It was an assault on all senses.

The climb up the mountain was amazing. The formations there were unlike anything I had seen. The colors were beautiful and I think it is now one of my favorite places I have been to in China. All along the stairs were wooden gutters that brought water down from the top of the mountain. The sounds of the water and the look of the trees reminded us (those of us who have played it) of the computer game, Myst. It was so serene and there were not many people around, so it made for an enjoyable experience, as well as a pretty rough climb.

It took us around 1.5 hours to get to the top. Near the top we had to take off our shoes to climb the rest of the way. This is when I discovered that I was a billygoat in a past life. I much preferred climbing on the rocks barefoot. I thought everyone would feel this way, but they did not. I cannot even describe how the rocks looked, that's why I am including photos. The color and the texture was beyond amazing. Adina pointed out that some of the formations looked like cakes with chocolate syrup dripping down. This might also have to do with the fact that we had been talking about chocolate cake quite a bit. We rested on the top for a while, ate some snacks and then came down.

Our next stop was in Shuge, to have lunch and see the first bend of the Yangtze River. We ate lunch at this great place where you go into the kitchen, look at all of their ingredients and tell them what you want! At first I thought it was weird because I didn't know what would happen if I said I wanted a potato. Did that mean I would get a potato on a dish? What they did was you would pick something (like a potato) and then they would mix it with other ingredients and then you would have a dish. It was probably one of the better meals we had during our trip, until I saw a fly in my rice. After lunch we went up to a monument for the Red Army to look out on the Yangtze.

We drove back to Lijiang and went to the Prague Cafe for dinner. This is where the trip went sour. We had been wanting to get Naxi sandwiches for a while since we thought it was a Naxi thing. Sadly, Lily told us it really isn't Naxi, it's more like a thing Westerners like to eat. At any rate, we all ordered them and they turned out to be like BLTs with ham, cucumbers and goat cheese. It was alright, but I started feeling sick pretty soon after eating it. The strange thing was that no one else felt sick and we all ate the same thing.

After hanging out for a while, we went back to our rooms and I noticed a horrible stench when I walked into Adina's and my room. It smelled like someone had smoked a pack of cigarettes in there. None of us smoke and none of us had been in there since before dinner, so it was really bizarre. Then I started getting really really dizzy and had to sit down on my bed. When I went to lie down I noticed that right by my pillow the smell was the strongest and it also smelled like chemical gas. I never felt this strange before and thought I was going to pass out. It was late, but we called the woman at the front desk and she came up with a can of air freshener. I was really unhappy with that because covering up a smell is not going to stop it from killing me in the middle of the night. I was really nervous about the chemical gas smell and so we had her look around to see if there were any leaks. Justin and Steve were staying in the room next to ours and they were closer to the gas tanks, but there was no smell in their room and the gas did not appear to have a leak. We never figured it out, but we moved to another room because I did not want to risk not waking up in the morning.