Traveling through Yunnan

After a pretty relaxing week in Taiwan, here we are, ready to get back on track with our adventures in China, but this time in the amazing region of Yunnan. Our first stop in Kunming was short. Indeed, Kunming is a really big city and our hostel couldn’t normally host foreigners, so we decided to move on to our next destination. Our next destination was Heijing, a small village totally authentic and not at all touristy. We walked for a couple of hours in the really charming quiet town. We then arrived in a street with a few shops open. There was also a small market of fruit and vegetables with chickens wandering around the stalls and a jeweller forging in the middle of the street.

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We then went to Dali. The old town Dali is perfectly conserved, and it was really nice just walking around the street while eating a lot of local specialities: Dry cheese, rose cakes, pork and onion dough, grilled fish… Yes, we do eat while walking around a lot, but it’s the best part of travelling!!! In the evening we met up with JB for a drink, one of the French guys we met in northern Mongolia. It was so funny and unexpected to see him in this town in the middle of a country as big as china. Plus, he had already been there for a few weeks, and so he knew a bunch of Chinese people who joined us afterwards – it was so nice! The day after, we decided to rent a scooter to go around the lake and visit a few of the smaller villages around. I was so excited as this was the first time I was actually driving a scooter. Yes, I drove it only for 5 minutes and Megan for the rest of the day but still!!! It was great! Especially since we stumbled upon, completely randomly, a kind of religious ritual who was at the same time really aesthetic and really impressive. There were only women, dressed in their colourful traditional clothes. There was a lot of different scattered groups of people, some were chanting, others were giving gifts to the 'gods' or playing instruments. There was food everywhere and the incense burning added a mystical side to an already surreal atmosphere.

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After that we went in Shaxi, a small, very quiet and authentic village. After a stroll along the river and then in the city, we came back to our hostel where we shared a lovely dinner with the people living there. The atmosphere as well as the people was really nice, we therefore decided to make the most of it and wormed our way in their yoga session the morning after.

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Finally we left to go to Lijiang, our starting point to treck in the tiger leaping gorge – a place we really wanted to see. The old town was really big and touristy but still quite enjoyable. Still, the best thing in this city was a great meal with an amazing atmosphere in our hostel. There were food everywhere with people from all around the world travelling like us. We left really early the next morning with 3 of those people to visit the famous gorges.