We’ve been back in Suzhou for a while now, but I haven’t forgotten to finish up with my posts about the rest of Yunnan and Guizhou! The beginning of the school year has kept me very busy, and of course, I’m still trying to find about 1000 animals homes, so sometimes, the blog needs to wait. These are just a few!
Our time in Yunnan was spectacular. As you can see in my posts about Lovely Lijiang, there is so much to see and do in Yunnan province. And, if all that good stuff isn’t enough reason enough, there is yet another spectacular site to see. A few hours away from this lovely city, you will find one of China’s greatest natural treasures: Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Tiger Leaping Gorge is the thing of legends. People have been writing about it for years, and its name actually comes from one of many myths written about it. It is said that a tiger was running from hunters when it came upon the massive gorge. Instead of diving into the water below, or being killed by the hunters, the tiger leapt onto a rock in the middle of the gorge, and then from there, safely to the other side.
The tiger has been immortalized in a stone carving
We heard of a lot of different ways to get to Tiger Leaping Gorge, but we were on a bit of a budget, so we decided to take a bus there, rather than book into a crowded tour. It turned out the bus we took actually WAS a tour, but it was cheap, and the guy who ran it was super nice, so we were ok with it.
The bus was pretty old, and one of the windows had a taped up piece of cardboard instead of a window, but it got us from point A to point B, and back again!Our rest stop on the way to the gorge. That is a ‘toilet’ that you squat over. If you’re near the end, you get to see everyone else’s ‘stuff’ float under you while you’re going. Also, there are no doors, so you can watch someone across from you pooping. It’s all very….rural.
The time spent on the bus and in rest stops is well worth it once you arrive at the gorge. Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest in the world. It’s 16kms long, and is nearly 3,900kms deep, from the top of the two mountains where the river begins. When you get to the viewing point, you need to climb quite a ways down to get to the gorge itself. Don’t worry though: there are stairs leading the way down, and you can even hire someone to carry you in a chair up and down the stairs if you’re disabled, a child, or just plain lazy.
I don’t think I’d look so happy if I were carrying people up and down stairs all day!
Being down by the water is mesmerizing. The power this gorge holds is unlike anything I’ve seen. As the water thunders down from the mountains, into this narrow canyon, it’s almost hypnotizing. It hadn’t been particularly rainy before we went, but still, the water is deafening as it thunders through.
Even from up high, the gorge is unbelievable
As you get closer, it just gets even more incredible!
We had about an hour to enjoy ourselves by the upper gorge
Upper Gorge is the most popular destination for tours, so it was pretty crowded, although not as bad as I had expected. The accessibility to Upper Gorge is quite good, so almost anyone can go, but more adventurous people carry onto Middle or Lower Gorge We planned on going to middle gorge to see some of the beautiful sites there, but when we arrived, it turned out it was just a guesthouse we were seeing, and we never got to go down to the actual water there. We did stop at a beautiful lookout on our way though!
We had to climb up onto some precarious rocks to get these shots, but it was well worth it! The best thing was that our little bus of 10 tourists were the only ones there.
We were hoping to see a bit more during our time at Tiger Leaping Gorge, but there was some construction on the road due to landslides, and we wound up spending over 2 hours waiting in traffic to get through to middle gorge, so we really only had a bit of time to grab some food and then head back.
There was an awesome pig across the road from the guesthouse where we got food though, so that was pretty cool!
If you’re thinking of making the trek out to Tiger Leaping Gorge, you will not regret it! My only wish is that we could have spent a few days hiking around there, but it would have meant giving up some of our time in Sichuan or Guizhou, so we did what we could with the time that we had. Lots of people do hike the very long trail though, and they’re rewarded with gorgeous views when they do! Once you’re in Lijiang, you’ll be spoiled with options to see the Gorge. Every hotel and guesthouse offers info on tours and trips down there, because it’s the main reason people go to Lijiang in the first place.
And don’t worry…by the time you get to the actual gorge, you’re back in the land of nice toilets!
That’s all I’ve got for Yunnan! My next post should be about Guiyang City; the place Dave and I called home during our first year together in China! It was pretty surreal being back there this summer, and I’m looking forward to writing all about it!
Our first trip to Kunming, back in 2015, wasn’t planned very far ahead of time. We had been granted a few extra days of holidays before our trip to Thailand, so we zipped down to the capital of Yunnan and didn’t have time for anything beyond that. This time around, we made sure to get out of Kunming, and we were very glad we did!
We took a high speed train directly to Lijiang from Kunmimg Station. It was a 3 hour ride and it was beautiful!!
We stayed at a nice little hotel in Shuhe Old Town, which is far enough from the main buzz that we could get some sleep, but close enough to lots of restaurants and shops that we weren’t remote. The whole area was beautiful and I honestly felt like I couldn’t take a bad picture if I tried.
Our hotel had a spring fed pool. No chemicals, which was cool…. But also… It was cool! Very cold water. We never ended up going in. The spring water was clean and beautiful and ran through the town. Every path leads to beauty!One of the many little restaurants in ShuhePlenty of kitsch photos to be taken (but they looked pretty good!!!)One of many doggie friends I made in Lijiang. The whole city is full of big dogs! They all seem well cared for and were very friendly!!
Most people come to Lijiang to see Tiger Leaping Gorge, and I’ll get to that in my next post. Lijiang is so much more than a stopover though and there is plenty to see right in the city itself.
Black Dragon Pond
Our view as we entered the park
Black Dragon Pond Park is a lovely place to go for an evening stroll. It was built in the 1700s and offers peaceful walking paths and beautiful pavilions and pagodas to enjoy during your stroll.
Gorgeous architecture. I loved the colors in LijiangThe pond is the central feature of the park. It dried up in the past, but is now a protected zone, so Lijiang never loses these beautiful views So much green!
We didn’t spend a great deal of time here, but we walked around shortly before sunset and enjoyed the comfortable weather and the peaceful atmosphere.
Lovely Koi. Some children were feeding them yak milk candies. I feel like these likely aren’t a part of their regular diet. A lovely evening with a lovely person
Mufu Palace
Once more, I was blown away by the colour!
We made the mistake of visiting Mufu palace in the heat of a very hot day, so we didn’t actually stay long. We did manage to see some of the palace’s beautiful architecture.
In its hay day, Mufu palace, which was owned by the Mu Family for 22 generations, rivaled Beijing’s forbidden city in size and splendor. The palace was destroyed in the 1800s, and the area was used to build houses in the developing area, but in the late 1900s, a reconstruction was planned, and the palace was rebuilt as a tribute.
The original grounds were said to sprawl over 16 acres and had more than 100 buildings. The complex now still takes up 8 acres of space, most of which we didn’t have a chance to see.
Even if you can’t see the whole palace, it’s only about 40rmb to get in and walk around (under $10cad pp), so it’s well worth even a short visit.
Old City of Lijiang
Lijiang old city comes to life at night
We spent quite a bit of time in the old city. It was beautiful, lively and not nearly as crowded as we’ve seen in other places. Unlike Pingjianglu in Suzhou, Lijiang old city is sprawling and covers a very large area.
For China…. This isn’t crowded
There are shops selling all sorts of yak-related products. We tried yak jerky, Yak skewers, Yak yogurt and Yak candy while we were in old town, and it was all delicious!!
Yak jerky isn’t cheap, but it is tasty!
You can also buy scarves, locally made fruit wine and all sorts of souvenirs in the old city. And of course, the bar scene is worth mentioning. There’s live music all the way down the bar street. The nightlife in Lijiang wasn’t really something I was expecting. It kind of felt like we were in a tame version of Thailand!
I forgot to get pictures of the bars. There is so much to see down there, that it’s easy to miss stuff!! You can’t miss the durian though. Even if your eyes don’t see it… Your nose will smell it!!!And I was glad to get this shot! All of Old Town lights up at night, making this UNESCO site both beautiful and bright!
Lijiang is a city full of life, great food and beautiful architecture. With perfect climate, big doggie friends in abundance and all the liveliness in the world, Lijiang is definitely worth a stop in Yunnan!
2020 has been a very hard year for everyone… But I think expats have had unique challenges that people back home don’t really realize. I have friends who are separated from their spouses and kids, because boarders closed when they were apart. I know people who have lost their jobs and their homes because they didn’t get home in time. Thousands of pets have been abandoned or left behind this year, because it’s simply too expensive to fly them anywhere. And of course, this is on top of the stress that everyone is already under, as this pandemic changes the way the world works, and the way we travel.
I wouldn’t dream of abandoning our furry crew, which is why we are sitting tight and waiting for the worst of it to pass.
Dave and I have been lucky, but even we have been affected. I won’t see my family and friends for 2 years because of this virus. Traveling home this summer was impossible, because if we leave, it is exceptionally hard to get back into China. Even if the boarders had re-opened over the summer, we couldn’t have risked it, because they could close again at any time.
When Poe developed an infection in her intestine while we were stuck in Malaysia, it was an awful feeling. Knowing we couldn’t get to her was not a situation I want to repeat.
Luckily, China is one of the safest places to be right now. Closing the boarders, requiring masks in public spaces, major disinfecting routines and frequent testing have all made a huge difference in controlling the pandemic. Rules have been put into place, and people follow the rules. That’s why our second wave has been minimal (so far).
China has worked with The World Health Organization and followed guidelines for preventing the spread of the virus.
Of course, taking things seriously can make for some hoop jumping on holiday. So many hoops, in fact, that plenty of people chose not to travel at all. I knew that if I just sat at home, I was gonna get pretty depressed, so Dave and I took plenty of safety measures, chose areas of China that had been COVID-free for some time, and we planned a 2 week trip. Here’s what that looked like for us…
I love that her mask says ‘face shield’ in English
Part 1: Nucleic Acid Tests
We decided to get the tests done before leaving on holiday. It isn’t a requirement to travel, but can facilitate things, so we figured it was wise. Also, if we were going to travel, we wanted to be sure we weren’t carriers. As a responsible person… You have to make sure you aren’t putting others at risk, after all.
We opted for the throat swab instead of the blood tests (blood tests can tell you if you ever had the virus in the first place, and we’re fairly sure we haven’t). There was a huge line up when we arrived, but when we asked which line we should go to, we were taken out back to a bus that had been turned into a testing site. Sounds sketchy, I know, but it was all very sanitary and well organized.
The following day, we had our negative results. We were sure to take photos of them, as well as to take our physical copies on the trip. It’s always a good idea to carry photos of your passport, visa, last entry stamp and other important documents, either on your phone or in a USB. That way, if your passport goes missing, you have some sort of ID.
The process was simple and painless. It only cost about $20 CAD, and was very quick. Unfortunately, these tests are only considered valid for about a week, so they didn’t help much. Still, I was happy to have them.
Part 2: Masks
We don’t typically have our masks on over our faces if we’re outdoors, but we always had them with us.
Like it or not, masks are a part of the world’s new reality… But in Asia, they’ve actually been a reality for a long time. I read one conspiracy theory that said Instagram came out with mask filters 2 years before COVID, and the author of the meme stated that this is proof that the virus was planned. In reality…people in Asia wear masks for a variety of reasons. Air pollution, road dust and illness are all reasons people wear masks here, and I had all 3 types of masks in my apartment long before the virus came out. Now, of course, more people are wearing them more often… But they aren’t by any means a new concept here.
I really do hate wearing mine. They make my face sweaty and I often complain about wearing one. It’s not fun. But my comfort isn’t the only thing that matters (I put it right back up after the photo, because we were inside a busy building).
Part 3: Health Codes
These codes ran our lives while we were on the road. Pro-tip for anyone traveling in China right now: bring a battery pack!!! If you can’t access your health code… You’re not getting in anywhere!!
In total, we downloaded 4 or 5 different health codes on our trip (I lost track). There was a different code for each province (it hasn’t been standardized nationally yet), and there were a couple of codes to show which areas you’ve been in over the last 2 weeks. Under the arrow on my code, you can see where I was for the last 14 days. Because every place I went to was ‘green’ (COVID-free), my own code is green. If I went anywhere where there was an outbreak in the last 14 days though… That code would be yellow or red, and I would have to stop my travels and get checked into a quarantine hotel.
Don’t worry, at every train station, airport and tourist site, they have posters up with the QR you scan to get the code. It’s impossible to miss, because there are always people standing in front of the signs, filling in their infoLike this!! The codes use your cell phone number to track where you’ve been. It seems creepy… But this is all happening anyway. Who needs microchips when everyone is walking around with portable tracking devices that they use willingly??? (Between selfies and privacy, selfies will always win!)
Part 4: Entry Forms
Wherever we went, we had to fill in forms with all sorts of information about our travel history and contact info. Some of the forms were pretty long and even required our visa numbers and job info. Most of them just wanted our: Names, phone numbers, passport numbers, hotel info and, of course, the date of our last entrance into China.
We had to enter this one just to enter Mount Emei. It was a bit excessive
Most places just had security guards doing this and almost none of them spoke English. If I had known all this ahead of time, I would have written out a little form with all my info in Chinese ahead of time to make things just a bit easier. By the end, we knew which questions were coming and we were prepared to answer them. The only place we needed help was at Mount Emei (different area than the form shown above). They mistook my visa for my latest entry stamp and they thought I’d only entered China in July (which is pretty much impossible…but, whatevs).
Sometimes they had us fill in the forms ourselves, which wasn’t easy either, because they were in Chinese. We could guess some of them based on Dave’s limited knowledge of characters (I have like 0 knowledge), but often we had to get them to read the forms to us (at least my listening comprehension is pretty good).
I should add that these forms actually do serve a rather important function. If there happens to be a breakout in a particular area, they quickly contact everyone who was in contact or in the vicinity of the sick people. Those people are then tested and kept under quarantine for 2 weeks to ensure the virus doesn’t spread. For locals, this is all tracked with their ID cards, in a big, national system. For foreigners, everything is done manually. It’s not a perfect system, but it does work. It prevents community transmission, which is the big threat in this pandemic.
I can’t lie..I would not want this job. To manually track every foreigner that comes into your city can’t be fun. The government could have easily said foreigners weren’t allowed to travel at all. This is an ok alternative, I’d say.
Part: Excessive Caution?
The only place where we really experienced any sort of difficulty was, unsurprisingly, Guizhou. This isn’t because Guizhou province is particularly bad (they have some of the best food in the world there!!). Guizhou simply sees fewer foreign tourists than other parts of China, so they aren’t quite sure what to do with us.
Guizhou is quite remote and far away from most of the biggest tourist attractions. It’s also a poor province.
When we arrived at Guiyang airport, everyone got up to get out of the plane, as usual, but before we could start moving towards the exit, the flight attendants made everyone sit back down. Then, they made all the foreigners on the plane get up, and walk out of the plane first. It kinda felt like we were being arrested or like we’d done something wrong.
We were greeted by staff in surgical gear, telling us that our Nucleic Acid Tests didn’t matter and telling us to quickly follow them…
The process itself wasn’t much different from other cities, other than a few extra forms and a bit more time watching them fumble through our passports (even though we’d shown them our stamps), but the way it was done was pretty alarming. I couldn’t help but think that the whole ordeal further perpetuated a prejudice against foreigners currently in China. Somewhere through all this COVID stuff… (some) people here began thinking that it is foreigners bringing the virus back into China. In reality, it’s Chinese nationals coming back from trips abroad who are the biggest risk. Foreigners are still barred from the country, and have been since March, so we aren’t the ones coming and going.
There were even some very racist comics released on the web about how China needs to clean up the country of ‘dirty foreigners’. These comics were met with backlash from both foreign and local netizens. The sentiment is there, but it’s not a sentiment that everyone in China shares.
A friend of mine had a similar experience to mine, also while in Guizhou province (not in Guiyang though). When he arrived by train, he and his Chinese girlfriend were taken by police car to the closest hospital for a mandatory nucleic acid test. This was in spite of their green codes, valid entry stamps and the tests they’d already done in Suzhou. When they arrived at the hospital, however, the doctors there told the police to ‘stop bringing them every foreigner that comes into town’. So obviously, not everyone in China thinks foreigners are a walking plague.
Temples were rather strict about mask wearing as well, but we noticed they would tell us to put our masks up (while we were outside), but let locals walk around without. Once more, these instances occured in remote areas.
To Summarize
Traveling in China at the moment is mostly safe, and only a minor inconvenience. If you plan to do it, I recommend that you bet prepared to be a bit more patient than usual. Most people are just trying to do their job and play their part in keeping China safe. You will meet the occasional racist, but that’s the case in all countries and all situations, so I wouldn’t worry too much.
And hey… Look at the bright side… Sometimes the special rules put into place for foreigners get you a shuttle bus to yourself and a fast track out of the airplane!
I’ve got more to write about Yunnan & Guizhou! Check back soon!
During our first year in China, we visited Kunming for a short trip, but sadly never made it to the stone forest when we were there. Instead, we saw The West Hills, which was spectacular in its own way.
It was a lovely day spent up high, surrounded by trees and beauty.
I’d always regretted not seeing the stone forest, so we planned it into this trip. The Stone Forest is a geological formation that was created about 270 million years ago. It started at the bottom of a lake, and gradually, wind and water carved this limestone into what it is today.
And today, it’s beautiful!I got this shot just as we entered the park. The little boy was quite far away from the stones, but it can still see the way they tower over him. This entire area was the product of nature. Is amazing what a bit of rain and water can do!!
The Stone Forest is an easy day trip from Kunmimg city. We booked tickets at the wrong train station, which added an hour to our journey, but if you take the high speed train from Kunmimg Station, which is centrally located, it only takes 60 minutes to get to Xilin, the closest station to the park. From there, take bus 99 for about an hour, until you reach the Stone Forest.
There are a few packages that include circus and dolphin shows and I was prepared to put up a fight if they tried to push us into paying for them (#emptythetanks!!!!), But it wasn’t actually even mentioned to us. In total, it cost less than 100rmb per person to see the park, including the shuttle bus to the entrance gate.
The Greater Stone Forest is a labyrinth. We walked around for several hours, climbing up and down, checking out all the different viewpoints. Some sections of the park made me feel quite claustrophobic. The formations are so high and the paths are quite narrow in those parts.
I didn’t get pictures in the worst parts because I just wanted to get out. Picture this, but not being able to see the other side…. Just a never ending path that gets much more narrow in some parts.
We saw some really cool stuff in the stone forest, including some beautiful birds, cacti, and greenery.
We walked through the park, of course, and took our time appreciating all the lovely things there is to see. It was pretty warm by the time we made it to the other side, and we were pretty tired from all the walking, so we decided to take the shuttle back to the front of the park. We realized on the shuttle that we were surrounded by people who had never actually gone into the park. They ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhhed’ at some of the more basic formations. It’s good to know that people with disabilities can still see the park this way, but if you have the choice, definitely go in!
We were quite high up in this part of the park. We had to climb a lot of jagged rocks to get to the viewpoint. There were other viewpoints that were surely more accessible, but they were also crowded so we avoided them. This was my favorite shot in the minor stone forest. This part of the park isn’t as grand as the major stone forest, but it certainly has some beautiful areas. I loved the contrast between plant and stone.
The only complaints I had were the crowds, and the incessant notices that kept blasting all over the park. It felt like it could be such a peaceful place, if the space were just respected more. Instead, there was a lot of the usual Chinese tourism stuff: screaming children, adults shouting at each other from across the park and incessant announcements reminding everyone to be “safe”.
It looks empty because I’m patient and will wait for an area to empty so I can get a photo (and I’m quick, so I get it before others come along), but it was really quite crowded.
I did like the Stone Forest a lot, but I don’t think I’d dare go there during peak season. I’m sure it’s pure mayhem.
At least there doesn’t seem to be too much damage from tourism. The park is well maintained.
Next up, I have some posts about lovely Lijiang, which is also in Yunnan! Check back soon!
