Naxi Roast Pork at Lijiang Ancient Town 丽江古城
It would seem that I didn’t really plan my trip to the Tiger Leaping Gorge very well. True, I only decided to go to the Tiger Leaping Gorge because the hostel staff told me to. I was under the impression that transportation the would be plentiful. I guess I was half right. There were lots of transportation that passes by the Tiger Leaping Gorge Town but there wasn’t any at the gorge itself. I managed to find transportation back to Tiger Leaping Gorge Town through a free lance cab driver who didn’t have any passengers on the way back. Ironically, he managed to pick up two workers on the way out of the Upper Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Golden Harbour Restaurant 黄金海岸 at Lijiang Ancient Town 丽江古城
Now getting back to the Lijiang is a problem. There was no formal bus station here in Tiger Leaping Gorge Town or Qiaotou so I had to resort to flagging down a passing bus. Not as easier task since most buses are full on the way to Lijiang, and they don’t allow for standing passengers. I wasn’t alone here as there were a few also waiting along the road. I was considering my options, which included a night here in Tiger Leaping Gorge Town. I managed to find this student from Chengdu who was also stuck and needed a ride back to Lijiang, we managed to find a cab driver who was willing to bring us for a fee of CNY 150. I was okay with that since I had someone to share the fare with.
Unfortunately, our two hour ride wasn’t exactly as peaceful as I thought it would be. When the taxi driver found out where I came from, he raised a fit and was complaining loudly about it. My country has several rather high profile disagreements with China. Only too willing to the focus the issues on apparent foreign aggression, this news seems to be quite big here in China. The Chengdu student was much more level headed and was trying to calm the driver down saying that it wasn’t my fault. I also tried to point out that the disagreements between our governments should not affect how we deal with each other as ordinary people.
After about thirty minutes of arguing, I ran out of Chinese and maybe he got tired. I didn’t want to keep arguing either since he is my only way back to Lijiang. I don’t know whether he saw my point but I think it is just a symptom of a greater problem afflicting the large portions of the population with everything tightly controlled, minds started getting warped and closed with only one point of view being the correct one. This is a dangerous situation and needs to be remedied lest mistakes of other countries be committed here as well. I love visiting China and while most of the people I met are very nice, you would meet a few of these close-minded people, these kinds of behavior and thinking ruin it for everyone including themselves.
After two hours of driving we arrived in Lijiang, much to my relief. The driver seemed to have calmed down a lot and was now in a better mood. Before entering the city itself we passed through a car wash area which is basically a place to hose down the car as it surely is very dirty from the rough road from Tiger Leaping Gorge. He then proceeded to drop me off at the Lijiang bus station and handing me a name card saying to let my friends know about him. I’m not sure about that though.
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