Here we are just outside the guest house where we ate lunch at Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia) :)

These are what Mo Mos look like.....yak meat in the middle....curry sauce for dipping... yum!

This is one of the streets in LiJiang

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. We are at LuGu Hu

After leaving Kun Ming we headed home up a road that was supposed to be very good and fast. Unfortunately that road had been ripped up and has yet to be replaced. In 2 years when the highway is completed between Kun Ming and Chengdu I'm sure it will be a very pleasant journey. Until then, well I recommend that you wait until then. We drove the equivalent of LA to Salt Lake City and instead of taking 10-12 hours, it took us about 24 hours with a short sleep in the car. In some places we were forced to go not over 20 miles/hour either because we had to be in 4 wheel drive to get through or because there was oil purposely spilled all over making it almost impossible to stop. Poor James was totally exhausted- mentally and physically when we got home. Seeing the Chengdu smog was a relief- except that the cough I got rid of on the trip quickly returned.
After parking the car at home, we went to Zoe's BBQ Restaurant (see picture :))for a nice big meal..... then we went home and took a shower.
Grandmas, it is trips like this where your prayers really pay off.

Seeing her big sister get negative attention for not eating her noodles, Zoe promptly liked her noodles and ate 1/2 of her bowl..... only to get car sick and throw them all up a half hour later.

You can tell by the look on her face how much Marlo like the noodles....
The kids were really amazing the whole trip. They tried new food without complaining... used horrible toilets, slept in strange beds every night- including the car, spent long hours in the car, just to get out and walk around. They didn't get much down time. This was really the first objection that Marlo posed... so she tried them, and then we left.

As we ate, Teac made new friends and would have been happy not to get in the car again but just to stay there and play with the scale.

Here we are eating the famous "over the bridge noodles" just before we left Kun Ming to go home.

Hope you can read this.

The Hump memorial

At the park where we found the zodiac statues we went to the memorial to the Flying Tigers of WWII, the Burma road, and chinese ingenuity and will that built airports, flew missions, and faught off the Japanese.
After reading the biography of General Stillwell, we were a little disappointed to read how little credit they gave to US involvement and support. We hear that in Chong Ching they venerate them a little more.

the year of the tiger :)

the year of the sly, smart, rat

the year of the chicken.... rooster...? no reflection on his feelings about climbing on things for sure.

the year of the horse....

Born the year of the Dragon...

From Da Li Shi we drove on the nicest stretch of road for the entire trip. It was toll roads and beautiful 6-lane divided highway. We took video of the other roads but didn't really take any still shots. When we got to Kun Ming, the capital of Yuinan province, the hostel we wanted to stay in was full. The next place on the list was the university hotel. It was located on campus and although the only room they had left was 3 beds and the kids on the floor, we were very happy. It was one of the nicest places we stayed the entire trip... and not expensive either.
Just a short walk from the hotel was a great street full of students, little resturaunts, and a great media store. They had real copies of The Sound of Music, opera albums, all sorts of things that had been re-packaged for the chinese market, but were US quality with english everything inside for only $2 or $3. We walked around and ended up at this great place to eat. It was the first time that we have had sweet and sour chicken and had it taste anything like take-out food at home- even James liked it.

Here we are on top of the wall. The gold pagoda you can see in the background is one of 4 in Da Li. We didn't actually go see any of them because it was like $20 each person just to walk to the foot of it- they don't let you go in. However, they are some of the oldest structures in that part of China... and that is saying something.

Here we are outside of the wall looking at the same entrance to the old city.

Da Li old city has a wall that runs all the way around it. This is us in front of one of the entrances to the city through the wall.

Here the girls are in front of a batik vendor. They sell clothing, table cloths, bags.... numerous things all done with the batik technique. Some of them are really beautiful. It is particular to the Yuinan area.

On the street in Da Li there was a man making sugar designs. You go up and spin the spinner and then eat the animal that the spinner lands on- all signs from the chinese zodiac. They were prettier to look at than they were to eat... the kids ate about 1/2 before they were suggared out.

Here is the picture. I forgot to mention that the only person missing from the picture before was Zoe... she took it, and did a great job.

Marlo and Zoe wanted to pose for Papi to take their picture.... so other people decided to too.

From Shangri La we headed back south and found Tiger Leaping Gorge. Turns out if we had just waited for the next sign we would have found the gorge just fine the first time... oh well..... We drove in, past the hordes of people all climbing down the steps into the gorge and drove under waterfalls and over landslides until we got to the first guest house about 1/3 of the way up the gorge. We stopped, had lunch and took pictures.... I will post them when I get them from Heidi.....Then we got back in the car, drove back down past the maddness, and went to Da Li Shi. Here we are in Da Li the next morning.

I know this seems like a double, but in this picture you can really see the iron pot of coals that Marlo and Zoe are huddled around for warmth. Although it was warm during the day, at night at that altitude it really got chilly and the wind blew just to remind you that you didn't want to be there in the winter. They brought in one pot for each table to keep people warm....it certainly made us nervous with Teac so we didn't stay much longer after that.

This was one of the kids favorite stops. We ate at a small guest house in Shangri La. The cook there was from Nepal and he made us several Tibetan dishes. The favorite by far were yak-meat bao zi.... kind of like dumplings- called "mo-mos". You eat them by picking one up with your fingers, biting a small hole, and then drinking the hot broth inside. Then you can dip it in the curry sauce they serve with it. The kids ate them even without the sauce and we had to order more. The other dishes we got were also excellent. A very nice change from chinese fare.

From Li Jiang we headed north again. Our intention was to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge.... but we followed the sign that sent us to Tiger Leaping Gorge Village (the village part was missing from the sign) and continued following the road until we reached a toll booth. We asked them where the gorge was and they said we missed it... it was 60 km back, but Shangri La was only 30 km ahead. Well, it was 3 pm. so we decided to go forward. Zhong Jian as the city used to be called, they changed the name to reflect the place described in the book to attract tourists, turned out to be really cool.
It is totally inaccessible in the winter as it is quite high like 13,500 ft, and the city is constructing all sorts of new buildings in the Tibetan style in keeping with the drive for tourism. We found this new building with a lovely open square. Since we had been in the car for a long time, we let the kids out to play. Marlo and Heidi chose to jump, and Teac and Zoe played in the blow-up play land in the background.
When they had had their fill, we drove to find the old city and a place to sleep.

This is a view of Li Jiang from the top of the hill.

From LuGu Hu we drove, stopped over night for a landslide, drove some more and made it to Li Jiang for lunch the next day. I need some of Heidi's pictures to show you how cool the old town is there. The streets are blocked off to cars so we parked and carried our things to a youth hostel in the old city where we spent the night. At night the city was particularly enchanting with red lanterns lighting the streets, small cannals running between buildings and lots of people just walking around.
The biggest surprise was how clean the city is. No trash, no waste, no spitting..... there are police men on every corner and the cars all obeyed the traffic rules, stayed in their lanes..... let pedestrians cross without fear for their lives..... and the sky was a perfect blue with little white fluffy clouds.
Make no mistake though, this cities bread and butter is tourism... hence the cleanliness.... and there are souvenier shops everywhere.....and places to eat... and hotels.... We happened to arrive for the first annual snow peach festival. They brought in over 50 peach trees ladden with fruit and had a big competition for Miss Snow Peach and decorations everywhere.

We took a road that was supposed to take us to the next town, but it ended up being a 3 hour detour. Along the way we passed by this very odd sight. Tibetans use large sea shells as horns... and that is the only relationship that we can think of. We have asked other people and this shot has perplexed them as well. It is a fabricated shell, chained to this old, dead tree along the side of the road..... your guess is as good as mine but I think the photograph is kind of cool.

This is the view from the hotel. We were up on the second floor so when we walked out in the morning and saw the lake for the first time, it made the long drive all worth it.

This is the hotel we stayed at in LuGu Hu. It was on the Lonely Planet list and it did not disappoint. We showed up at 11pm and they took great care of us- hot water and everything.

This is the Chinese character for "nu" or female painted on the outside wall of the toilet so that you made sure you went in the girls' side. Even Heidi can read this one.

So this is a toilet..... yeah, I know, a little unrecognizable but without running water, this is what many of the toilets along the road of our trip were like.... sometimes it was better to just use a bush.

Zoe....

For the ride I was behind Teac.... good thing it wasn't a long ride as my bum is much bigger than the saddle.

Marlo on a horse..... well, we might call it a mini horse if it showed up in the US.

This is the new and improved marriage bridge.... that goes accross the grass sea at LuGu Hu. The little boards to the left in the picture are what is left of the original bridge.

More buildings at LuGu Hu.

There were wildflowers everywhere. They picked some for their hair, to throw to the wind....

I am so good at climbing...

This is at the edge of LuGu Hu. There is a prayer stuppa on the left. Apparently they pick up a rock and add it to the pile at special times of the year. Then they walk around it to pray. The building is done in their typical log style.

Little old lady at LuGu Hu. (Hu means lake by the way.) She is wearing her traditional clothes...

After a looong day of driving we finally made it to LuGu Hu. It was beautiful and I think we could have spent more time there just relaxing. It is the location of one of the last remaining matriarchal societies- they have what is known as a "walking marriage". The men and women never really live together unless they are brother and sister. It was a beautiful place but I can't say that we saw too much of the actual culture. The architecture there was a huge change from the cement and mud buildings. Log cabins... go figure.

We saw lots of mountains......and you know what that means the roads look like....

This is the type of contraption you might make if you disassemble an old tractor, chop a small truk and then weld them together with two steel pipes... remind you of anyone we know?

The next obstacle of the day came about 4 pm when we had no choice but to park in a little town over night. Turns out the town is going to be flooded in two years when they complete the dam and the new "highway". Meanwhile, while they are working, huge rocks keep rolling down the hill onto the old road so the cars can't get through except between 12 and 3. Since we showed up just after the closure we spent the night in the car and enjoyed the hospitality of some nice people who made some Chinese food for us. We shared our pumpkin muffins with them.

Our latest adventure to the Yuinan province for October holliday got off to a rough start. We ended up leaving late because of an emergency at work and then not far down the road Teac got car sick... poor Heidi. They were both in the back seat and she got to help him. She said it was just like home.