Saturday, August 9, 2008

Yunnan

I took off work and went to Yunnan from July 26 to August 3. The trip was amazing.

Some Highlights:
  1. Seeing my friend Ryan, who was living in Yunnan's capital Kunming and was in Nanjing in the spring. We had an excellent meal and an epic karaoke night.
  2. The best meal was in Dali on the second night. We had amazing mushrooms, veggies, a whole fish, and eel soup. Mmm.
  3. We had the good timing of being in Dali for the Torch Festival. A thousand Chinese people ran around the city's Old Town with torches and started bonfires. They threw fine saw dust on the torches causing them to flare up. They did this at people's feet a lot of the time to scare them. I only saw one person get lit on fire in a foreigner on foreigner attack. No injuries.
  4. Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge where the cliffs rise 3900 m (12,800 feet, that's 2.4 miles) above the Jinsha river. Took donkeys up the steepest part which was terrifying. The donkey handlers would just walk behind and make noise to make them go forward. I squealed plenty as they'd sometimes step half an inch from the edge of the cliffs.
  5. Songzanlin Lamasery in Shangri-la is the largest Buddhist temple complex I've ever seen and has 700-some monks. The frescoes, statues, and chanting monks were amazing. Also watched the swarms of crows that circle the monastery.
It's easier to upload pictures to facebook and I'd have difficulty picking out just a couple to put here. You can view them through the links below even if you aren't on facebook.

Yunnan I
Yunnan II
Yunnan III
Yunnan IV

I will follow up shortly with a post about the Olympics.