[digiet]

Day 1

Hong Kong -> Shen Zhen Airport -> Li Jiang
Although 4 of us are travelling together, we are departing from different places, 2 of us depart from Guang Zhou while my friend Mancila and I will depart from HK.

This trip we will go to few parts of Yun Nan, in this order:
Li Jiang -> Shangri La -> Lu Gu Hu (Lake)

Each place we will be staying 2 to 3 days.

Our plane transit at Kun Ming, almost missed the plane to Li Jiang as I was queuing for toilet!!! They told us the plane will depart 45mins later but apparent the 45mins starts counting from the moment the plane reaches Kun Ming airport and not from the time they told us >< Heard last call when I was in the toilet, quickly dash to the gate after that.

Reaches Li Jiang airport around the same time as the other two tour mates, Alison and Xin Xin, at around 5.30pm. Took a cab to the Old Town of Li Jiang, this is where most tourist stay. We checked into a motel and went out to explore the town.



There are alot of restaurants / food houses and pubs. Also there are alot of Na Xi Tribal girl standing outside the pub or sitting at the roof there challenging singing of tribal songs. They call it "dui ge", however tourist will sing pop songs while they sing their tribal songs. Hahhaa...a weird scene isn't it? But its rather fun....both party have to ends with :


Ya Shuo Ya Shuo Ya Ya Shuo -> not sure what it means however it make both side's singing sound like they are linked.

After that we went to a Na Xi restaurant to have a taste of their food.


Na Xi Girls sitting by the window compeititng with guys on the other side.

This is their "Liang Fen", is a cold plate.


An interesting thing we saw at the wall of the restaurant. Some of the pictures are way off the meaning of the words!



After dinner we went out for a night walk, enjoy the cold weather (we are on a high land, so despite it is ending of MAY the temperature is still quite low.

Then on our way back, we saw this Na Xi tribe girl dancing and ends off with such a nice pose that you see many cameras come snapping at her. So she started posing for the cameras
(Of course, I am one of them snapping at her. Look at her dress!!! Isn't it gorgeous?)



In Yun Nan, the sky turns dark very late, their 8pm is like Singapore 6 plus in the evening...thus we always tend to think is still early as the sky just turned dark.

[digiet]

Day 2
Wake up at 7 plus in the morning as we are having a whole day of event today. We booked the taxi that drived us to motel yesterday for the whole day.

Taxi drivers there all are part time tour guide also, most of them have a 1 day tour thingy, however they are more expensive than those mini van but more comfortable. Also they are not like tour group, they don't bring you to shop to buy stuff.

Sea La Shi (La Shi Hai)
First station of the day is Sea La Shi, we picked a horse riding + boat ride package that will take about 4hours. The price was priced at 380RMB each! After some dicussion we counter offer at 250RMB and we thought that person is going to bargain with us, and we are all ready to bargain...and guess what? He says OK, please come with me! OMG..................we know we been "chopped"...ai....but its ok, as the saying there, as long as you think the thing/service is worth this amount of $$, its something you are willing to pay, then you are not really being cheated lah. See, be more Ah Q spirit, and you will be happier


Scenary on our way to see our horses.

First thing here, pick our own horse. How to pick? We also have no idea so we judge by their look! See...typical girls. hahah



Riding horses here is different as compared to Singapore/Malaysia, no training required! You really ride on your own horse and the guide does not walk you holding to your horse rope. Instead, they ride on a horse too and each of them control 2 of our horses. Up to here everything seems normal right?

Guess what happen to us? They are not holding to our horse rope!!! We just ride freely with them leading us in right direction! And just as we are snapping away, they sudden decide to pick up speed and a "yu" ... the horses start to gallop! Omg, one hand I was holding my camera, the other was holding the rope and the handle...almost fall off the horse!

Can you imagine...how hard it is to keep your camera while on a horse! A word of advice, keep both hand free to control the horse!

So I quickly kept my camera when the horse slows down and soon we start galloping again, this time I have both hands to control.

However, is my first time riding a horse myself, so I can't control well, at a point I was so close to my friend's horse that my leg was caught in between two horses! I suddenly remembered reading an interview of Zhao Wen Zhuo, regarding him riding horses with a female actress for a drama and they came so close that he sense the danger and quickly kick the other horses to move apart. At this moment I almost wanted to kick my friend's horse too, but luckily I never, The body of the 2 horses is so soft that I just felt very warm to be "wrapped" by the horses.

But still is quite dangerous, as we are moving apart, I realise my foot was somehow nearly hooked onto her foot hold! Omg...luckily is almost only.

After all this, we come to a forest...and we are suppose to ride our horse up hill on the mountain track to see waterfall!!! I can see even the horse is not very stable with its footing on that small track. Omg...seeing how the horse infront of me is walking...I felt quite nervous..is like anytime it can miss its footing and both of us (me and my horse) will roll down the hill!

However, I think horses are used to these, and we arrived safetly with our amatuer riding skill.

See...attempting to be at a good position of the waterfall for photo taking. Rather dangerous, water is gashing on the board that we stepped on. And is quite slippery too. But we still managed to get there somehow



Getting hungry, so we settle for some potato, Liang Fen and dunno what there. Their chilli is nice Actually it doesn't look very clean...as in their cooking condition, is just a old black pot / wok and using wood to start fire to cook! But...we are hungry and I love potato!

Keeping our finger crossed and enjoy the food!


After that we even have desert! Water melon! Guess how they chill the water melon? They put it in the running water at the small stream just outside of the place!





After that an hour or so, we ride the horses back. On the way, Mancila's horse somehow kept stopping to eat the grass! So the guide started to control her horse too.

Then once we step out of forest, somehow the guides themselves start competiting. Omg...they are hitting the horses with branches to dash faster! I'm the only one controlling my own horse...have to keep up but I don't feel like hitting the horse...so i just "yu" and try to ride faster. Is very fun! Except that my sling back kept sliding off my shoulder so i need to kept adjusting it.

Even passer by are "wow" by us. Cos we are like those martial art expert in drama...standing on horses and galloping!!! Very very fun! The guide even teach me how to control the horse.

Tips:
To let the horse pick up speed, you must say "yu" at the same time clamp ur leg tigher. Then to stop / slow down is "yuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" + pull the rope tighter.

To go uphill, you need to bent forward to lighten the load on the horse back.

After that we went boat rowing, enjoy the nice weather.

Its rather relaxing and most surprising there is someone fishing in the middle of the sea (i still feel its a lake though) and selling BBQ mini fish. Quite tasty, is crispy and doesn't really feel like we are eating fish at all.
After this 4 hours...i felt as though my back is breaking...sounds old right? hahaa...is from the horse riding, so tired after that.


Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yu Long Xue Shan)


The stone stated here is 4506 metres high!



This is the highest spot that we went to for the whole trip to Yun Nan. Since it is only our 2nd day of our journey...we suffer abit of High Altitude Sickness, also known as Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS).

However we are quite lucky, only mild headache and a little bit lack of breath when we are walking uphill.

(however our lips does turn a little purple...)

Lucky we are all alright! And enjoyed the snow.



This is the first time I see snow (snowing in JUNE!!! In chinese we call it Liu Yue Fei Xue)! Very excited, despite we are without glove, we are still playing with the snow on the ground. It is freezing cold!

Fresh snow is nice to play with but those that formed quite sometime become like ice.

Thus the ground is very slippery especially when I am just wearing a pair of snicker.

Almost pushed my friend down one of the slope...(you can say mountain...cos i think if she roll down she will fall off some cliff or so)...Its too slippery..i almost slipped and she was right beside me so I accidentally pushed her. Luckily she is wearing treaking shoes and balanced well.

Notice we are all wearing caps? Why? Because of the UV ray, so we decide to wear cap to protect our precious face.

One technique to walk uphill / stairs...regulate your breathing, every step you take, breath in once. This will help in having more oxygen. As at highland, oxygen level can be very low, even 30% lesser than usual, so remember, do not run in such area even if you feel alright!

Reaction to high altitude is call gao shan fan ying, this is commonly heard however there is also reaction to low altitude area. For people who been living in high altitude area, they are used to low oxygen level thus suddenly going to low altitude area like Singapore, they will get giddy and some other symptons too! See...god is fair, hee!

The jade water village (Yu Shui Zai)
After that we went to this scenic place near the foot of the snow mountain.




Its already around 5-6pm! But look at the sky!!!
The water here is crystal clear. Native here are called Tong Ba however we never really see any of them except at the ticketing area.




To all students, remember to bring your student pass! It doesn't matter that it is not a China student pass or a international student pass. As long as you have a student pass, you can enjoy half price! (but note...they don't give 2 ticket, they give 1 ticket for 2 student...so sometimes u need 2 students to enjoy the offer).
But not applicable at the snow mountain though.

After that we stopped at another town for dinner before we went back to Old Town of Li Jiang.
A tired day however at night Xin Xin and I are still busy planning how we can get to Shangri La the next day without spending too much on transport!

[digiet]

Day 3
Checkout early in the morning after our breakfast at the motel. Is chinese style buffet...but of course in their own way, porridge + peanut and some of their local food.

On our way to take bus to Shangri La, alot of people ask us to take mini-van. Finally we decide to take one of them as they offer a price of 240 RMB for driving us to Shangri La and willing to stop at Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia).

However when we reached the van, they jack up the price to 400RMB saying that we are not coming back so we will be wasting their trip back. Then some arguement arise as we have already double confirmed with them the price yet now they are jacking it up. On top of that we are not in time for the public transport there already ... so is like we abit no choice so an arguement starts between Xin Xin and the driver. See...a bit startled as we are not used to such situation although we expect these to happen on our way.

Then we got surrounded by drivers! OMG...luckily another driver sound better...and suggested he drives us to Tiger Leaping Gorge and then leave us at a mid way where most people just hop onto any passing bus to Shangri La. We agreed as he sound like a nicer guy than the original driver and true enough is cheaper.

On the way we stopped at this free scenic spot for toilet break and they says this stream is part of the Chang Jiang and considered one of the being part of it. How true I don't really know ^_^



Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia)
One of the world's four great gorges, situated in Zhong Dian, between Li Jiang and Shangri la thus most people will come here while travelling between this two place.

The gorge is formed by two snow mountain, Jade Dragon and Haba, facing each other with Chang Jiang River cuts the two mountains at their base. Water rushes through the base, when you are the bottom, you can hardly hear each other talking because of the sound made by rushing water.

The deepest base of the gorge to the peak of the snow mountain is 3900 meters and the narrowest water surface is only 20 meters. The gorge is 20 kilometers long, separated as Upper, Middle, and Lower Leap, with a waterfall of 213 meters and eighteen surprising cascades.



Why is it call Tiger Leaping? Once upon a time, a big stone fall into the river and it was said that a tiger leaped across the gorge using that stone...thus the name Tiger Leaping Gorge. But of course, this is just a legend, seeing the distance I don't think any tiger can leap across!



This is the legendary big stone...actually, is just a stone^^||| But the sound of the gushing water is really magnificent.

There is a saying among the local: It is a man only that he went to Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Thus many local who turned adult will come here and walk through from upper to lower part of the gorge, it will normall take 2 to 3 days at least.

Those who are interested to take this walk, becareful as you will pass by some route that some villagers will claim is theirs and you have to pay $$. Reasoning with them or talking about law is useless there, so just take note, how much is the fee I don't really know though.

It is quite a bit of stairs to go down and climb back up, on top of that we are at an altitude of about 3000 metres! Saw this food stall here so we decide to take a break, bought some food from the auntie and shared abit with her grandson.


(my fren + auntie + her grandson)

The driver drives us to the town of Zhong Dian where we bought some tibits and wait by the road for any passing by bus or mini van to Shangri La. At first I was pretty worried whether we will get a transport or will we get chopped, but it appears that since the driver is already going on its way to Shangri La, any amount we offered he is earning so in the end we hop one a big van, enough for 7 person at only 100 RMB in total.

Mini van is different from bus is that it is only servicing us, so along the way if we want to stop it will stop. We passed by this garden of flowers and the driver stopped for us to take photos.





Although this garden is in middle of no where, there are locals taking care of it, thus they are charging 1 RMB per person for taking photos in their garden.


See...wild pigs can be seen along the road!

Shangri La
Finally we reached Shangri La of Yun Nan. From Li Jiang to here is about 3.5 hours ride. The altitude here is higher than Li Jiang's, is about 3200-3500 metres.

Our motel is in some small corner that we couldn't find it, need the person to come out to fetch us.

This is my room, we purposely picked a room with glass panel at the top so that we can enjoy the starry night before we sleep.



The whole motel have no other customer, thus is like we booked the whole motel! Yeah! Rather tired so we decide to dine in and request the person to make dinner for us.



When we are having dinner then we realise, the whole hotel is maintained by this young boy! Hahaha...he is about 17/18 only, yet he can cook better than any of us! Wanted to ask him to join us for dinner but too bad he is too shy.



Our "living room" ...haha, this is the common room for 2nd floor (we stayed at 3rd floor). But as there are no other guests, we just roam about the whole house.

We even washed our clothes using their washing machine!

After dinner we went out to hunt for transport for tomorrow.

On the way we pass by the parade square and we see many people dancing tribal dance in circle.



So we join in too...haha. The most inner circle is the tribal woman teaching us how to dance. Outer circles are formed by tourist. Alot of people and is very fun. You just need to look at how others are dancing and follow them. After 3-4 different songs, you will catch the sequence in their dances. Sometimes I think high altitude sickness are imaginary...see...we danced and felt OK....many danced too but during the day time we see people asking the tour guide to walk slower...lack of breath and etc.

After that we continue our hunt for transport, this time we learnt our lesson and be more careful. Here we take it for granted that driver does not smoke and of course never drink before driving. There, it is not so, many drivers smoke, some might even drink, so a driver promote himself by saying he never drink nor smoke while driving! But then again, he is expensive so we booked his friend's mini van instead.

Back to our room to enjoy stars!

[digiet]

Day 4

Bi Ta Lake (Bi Ta Hai)
Bi Ta lake is actually a natural scenic spot, however the whole mountain is fenced up (rather those entrace are) ... so here we go, have to pay entrance fee again.

However we just take it as a form of donation in helping to maintain the park, then you will feel better. Hahaha

Here, we have to walk a total of 4.8 KM within 3 plus hours.



Inside here, there is also a famous lake, Shu Du Lake. When we got there, we happened to see a filming team filming.

We have to walk few KM on these walkway. You can always chose to take a boat ride but then we decide to walk and enjoy the scenary and take photos.



Alamak, my cap blocked my camera^^| ...see...I am wearing only a tee shirt + a fleece jacket!!! Freezing cold...so borrowed a scarf from my friend......she got two luckily. I regret not wearing my down feather jacket!

Weather there is so unpredictable...when it is sunny, you might not even need a jacket or just a fleece jacket. But when it rain...you get freezing cold. I think when we were queueing to come in, it drizzy a little...I almost freezed with the wind blowing at me.

Tian Sheng Bridge (Tian Sheng Qiao)



Actually nothing much here, we are here just to have a toilet break and lunch. We see people soaking in the water...but...isn't it freaking cold? hhahaa....i wonder.

Greatest challenge - Toilet!
I suddenly have stomachache so i dashed to the toilet and guess what? I stopped at the entrance and to my horror...maggots are all over the place! OMG !!! Before coming on this trip, I do not even go to toilet without door, but on the trip I really have no choice but to use toilet that have half a door -> no door -> don't even have partition -> full of shit ....but no way I am going to use a toilet full of maggots! omg.....

In the end, I went back and my friend suggest that I take panadol to stop the pain instead. Thank god it worked!

After that we went to a Lamasery.

Ge Dan Song Zan Lin Lamasery (Song Zan Lin Si)


Its front door is having some construction but we are lucky, recently it just re-opened again!



Alot of stairs! We are climbing it slowly however there are two tibetan kids running up and down like nothing! But of course, we can't as we will suffer high altitude sickness if we run up the stairs. Walking is hard enough due to lack of breath.




We gave them our pen but we didn't bring spare paper with us thus in the end I let them draw/write on my hand.


A "watch" drawn by the tibatan kids.


Nothing for them to draw on, not only they draw on our hand, we also took out our entrance ticket to be used as drawing paper. (Then we realise there is a part where we need to show our ticket then can go in...but we hack care and just went ahead with the counter person shouting at us...hahhaa) But then luckily he never come out to chase after us!

I have decided to buy more stationary for my trip to Tibet, so that we can have more to give. It really aches my heart when I see how some adult kept calling them and luring them with $$. Actually they are more interested with pen and paper, so that they can use and write on. $$ will only be taken away from them and true enough, when their grandmother came, she just grab all $$ from their pocket at their chest. They passed her the $$ already but she still want to search...what a sad scene.

Hope the kids will not grow up to be too money oriented. I hate those adults luring them with $$ giving those attitude behaving like: Come..I have $$...come here and do as I say!

Kids, hope you guys have chances to study and step out of this proverty cycle.


Entrance to the temple.

Before we left, we saw the driver talking to an old Lama outside of the Lamasery, and he handed quite abit of $$ to him! See...this is how much they respect the Lama here.

After that we have some Si Chuan dishes at a chinese resturant. It is really nice and all these for only about 66 RMB!!! Rather spicy though, so not all can take it. But I love it man, love all the spicy food!



Tomorrow we are parting our way, so chatted a while before we went to sleep. Tomorrow both of them are heading towards Mei Li Snow Mountain, while Mancila and I are going to Lu Gu Lake.

[digiet]

Day 5
There are no public transport to Lu Gu Lake so we have to go back to Li Jiang to go to Lu Gu Lake. Morning bus to Li Jiang was cancelled thus we got a afternoon one.

Feeling lazy to move, we just laze around the motel for the morning and bid farewell to each other.

Went for a lunch before we left:

After all the Si Chuan food that we ate, we decided to have something not spicy. Fried rice + their homemade noodle.


Mu Yang puppy...I was told that this breed of dogs will grow up to be a very fierce dog.

The ride to Li Jiang is rather special in its own way, I think we took a local bus, not only are there people smoking, took off their shoes, we saw someone taking a rooster up! There, they sell this frozen icey triangular shape thingy, an auntie on the same bus offered it to us and it taste great!

After reaching the bus interchange, it is already about evening time, we bought bus ticket to Lu Gu Lake for tomorrow 9am. Is rather early so I decided to stay at the motel right across the bus interchange.




Have our dinner there. Ordered too much ... cannot finish at all! One meat + one vege + one soup is just too much for 2 of us with such big serving!


The room is rather new just that we have to use common bathroom. After I bathed, the gas run out and Mancila have to bath in cold water! Therefore never bath too late!

[digiet]

Day 6
Wake up abit late as we are staying near so tend to wake up later. Hahaha...but glad we are still on time for our bus.


Is a seven hour bus journey! Look at the road!!! Reminds be of down mountain racing in Initial D!


Toilet within the mountain! But of course, don't expect anything nice, I am happy enough that there is no maggots inside!


It so happened that the road is wrecked and needed a repair, so you see a long line of buses and mini vans. But they are rather fast, it took them only about 2hours to fix up a temporary road with wooden log.


We get to stop by this small kitchen for lunch for 45 minutes. But there were too many orders and the chef got confused. You start seeing people caming in and self service at the dishes...taking them away! I bet some people never pay for their meal. After we finished our egg fried rice + vege, we went up to them to pay. See...even if we walk out they also won't notice as they were still busy cooking. I hope they didn't make a loss. But food is pretty good...heee

Lu Gu Lake (Lu Gu Hu)
On the bus we get to know 4 girls from Kun Ming. So we decided to travel with them and stay at a motel called "Ah Li" in Li Ge. It is furthur inside of Lu Gu Lake however according to the travel book it says that the scenary there is nicer!


The scenery is really great! The lake is even better than the one we saw in Li Jiang! So green...so clean so natural!

The motel is owned by 3 brothers, it so happen one of them were on the same bus as us. Thus he will chat with us on and off. After that the brothers recommended us to have roasted piglet for dinner. We were OK with it.......but later on I happen to pass by them and this is what i see...


OMG...they are skinning a living piglet! OMG....i felt so bad..at that instance I felt so sinful >< But then ... is already too late to change my mind le. Can't bear to look any furthur. I quickly walked back to my room after taking this photo.

After dinner...we took turn to bath as the whole motel only got 1 bathroom and 1 toilet. In the past, there wasn't even a toilet! So this is already consider very well facilitated already.

While I was bathing, I saw earthworms on the wall! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

[digiet]

Day 7
Wake up at 6am!!! As we are going off to see sunrise at 6.30am! We were slightly late as I think there is abit of mis-communication.

While we were on the boat, we already saw many people standing at the hill top waiting!

Im amaze that we are all able to make our way up the hill, is quite steep...and all that we can grab on are bushes! But it is fun...haha...running up hill. Racing with the sun rise.

Yeah, get to see sunrise...some of them left as they thought we won't get to see. Luckily we stayed and saw it! It is rather cloudy thus we were very luck to be able to see it.




See how clear the water is!

Breakfast time!
We are having their traditional breakfast: Porridge + pan cake alike thingy (cao mai bin) + yak butter tea (tibetan butter tea) + highland barley (qing ke)




See that pot of powder on the right picture? I thought it was an incense burner when I came in...it really does look like the one used for praying. But this is edible! I tried it....erm...is powdery taste ^^ ahhaa.. U need technique to eat this, must be fast and swift if not you will have qing ke all over your body!

The yak butter tea is like salty milk tea...so abit not used to it. I heard that in town they have a sweet version that we are more used to it, but it would be like drinking normal milk tea.

As we were chatting, we realise they did the same horse riding + boat rowing at Li Jiang at only 100 RMB each! We paid 250 RMB each ...omg look at the difference!!! But then ok lah, I still enjoyed my horse ride alot

After that we decided to walk to Shui Li, another village...we were told it wasn't too far...but ... but... to and fro took the whole day! Set off at 10am we came back at around 3-4pm!


See ... treaking here is like taking obstacle course, dangerous but fun!


This is the couple trees (fu qi shu). See there are 2 couples by the lake!


Came acrosss this, see...instead of cable car they are taking this mini car thingy uphill! Going up to mountain!!! (Actually I think this is only to mid hill, there should be cable car bringing them to peak of the mountain).


Reached Shui Li. Along the way was nice scenary. I think we walked about 20 KM!!!

Then we saw some of the local kids playing in water naked^^| and some of the local woman doing their work on the lake.





They also have argiculture here. At Shui Li we met a lady who brought his son here for a month already! She is almost like the local here already, asking us to go her house for a cup of tea.



When we are there, we saw many villagers queueing to be examined by a doctor. After asking, we realised we came to the head's house and he hired a doctor from the town to come all the way here to diagnose the villagers and especially his father.

They are very polite to the doctor and you can see from their actions their respect for him. They also asked us to join in for lunch, but we were too shy so we replied that we are not hungry ^^| (was very hungry but too many of us...6....haha)

After that we walked all the way back again. The 4 kun ming girls were very advanturous...I believed we wouldn't walk all these mountain track ... without them. Anytime you will slip and roll down! On the way back we even took a wrong path and walked a very steep way down hill. Steep slope and ground full of stones that is so rocky and slippery to walk.

But luckily we were all wearing long sleeves and jeans, prevented us from getting scratched by branches and we reached our destination safetly^^| When we were coming down, actually there were villagers shouting to us from bottom that we came down by the wrong route...but we thought they were chatting with each other across the farm! LOL


Cactus on the way! Kind of weird isn't it...we also saw a fruit tree but unsure whats on it...they say is apple...but it is so small!


This doggie followed us for quite a long distance...about one third of our way back! Wonder if he knows how to go back.


Ops, this photo is not so well taken. We went for a tribal dance night.

You can chose to wear their tribal clothes and then they will dance with you in circle.

After that we also "dui ge" (remember the part in Li Jiang...alot of tribal girls will dui ge with tourist?)

We sang alot...very random...most popular one I think is the song by Ah Niu, Dui Mian De Nuu Hai Kan Guo Lai.

[digiet]

Day 8
Wake up at 5plus am, leaving the place very early as we need to catch a morning bus at Zuo Suo (a town near by) to leave the place and continue on another trip (to Tibet).

On our way we passed by some villagers hitching a ride to the town. The driver didn't really want to, but they managed to squeeze into one seat infront (2 of them). I am pretty ok, as I know if we don't give them a ride, they will have to walk all the way there. It is about 1-2 hours ride!

This marks the end of our fruitful trip to Yun Nan.

========================================================

This trip to Yun Nan, I have alot of first time. First time to :
1. Such high altitude area
2. Ride horses myself, even to the extend of galloping!
3. Dui Ge
4. See a gorge
5. See snow, play with snow
6. See a life piglet to be slaugther infront of me....(omg ><)
7. Track a mountain with such steep slopes and path without any rope by the side to help. (but I enjoy such tracking more than climbing stairs!) More dangerous though...but all you need is grab onto your friends, help one another.
8. Go to toilet without door!
9. See a toilet that is full of maggots! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
10. Of course, not forgetting the local food there that were not found in anywhere else.


Tips for handling High Altitude Sickness
1. Overcome your psychological wall, stop worrying about it and best is forget about it! I believe most people have such problem is because they kept thinking about it and believe they will have problems there.
2. Although I said don't think about it but still must do precaution, bring medication to counter high altitude sickness. This will help to put your mind at ease.
3. Try to plan your trip such that you move from lower place to higher place. E.g start from Kun Ming then to Li Jiang, then Shangri La. This will help you adapt to the lack of oxygen.
4. Never be lazy, bring the jacket around! If you caught a cold in high altitude area is harder to recover.
5. Bring lots of cholocate and mint sweets. Instead of taking medication, when you feel you have some reactions, like mild giddy or lack of breath etc, sit down eat some chocolate and mint sweet.
6. If you are sick for more than 2 days and is turning from bad to worse or have persistant severe headache, go to the local hospital immediately!
7. Lastly ... relax and enjoy!

Travelling tips:
1. Be brave at bargaining ... don't afraid to be scolded.
2. Be careful...not to be chopped. E.g. we heard of some sedan or horse cheaters...they will carry you / let u ride some distance then after that ask for more $$ if not you will have to walk on or back yourself! So when you are taking these, ensure to check with them that the amount of $$ you pay is for the whole journey.
3. Although you have to be careful but be nice to people...if you are nice to them they will be nice to you too. (nice but careful though)
4. don't be afraid to ask your way.
5. Stay longer in each place..there are more places in Li Jiang and Shangri La that we never been to.
6. Get to know other travellers, exchange travel tips.
7. Note that we were travelling in off peak season so it seems easy to hitch a ride (e.g at the town in between Li Jiang and Shangri La), but during peak season it may not be so. Especially during CNY, labour day (1-7th May) or national day (1-7th Oct).

[lwkoh]

very nice. 8day too short. yunnan can tour 3-4 months easily