The next day we hopped a mini-bus over the mountains to Lijiang, where an old man couldn't hold down any food. When we got there, we debarked to see that he had missed the window a couple of times, too, and his jacket was half covered in vomit. What did he do? Sit down and have a smoke to get his bearings. Maybe he was pondering, like us, how the bicycle cart got on top of the bus. We had read in Lonely Planet that if we stayed at a hostel called "Mama Naxi's Guesthouse," she would come to pick us up from the bus station herself. No harm in asking. We called the guesthouse number and told whomever answered that we had arrived. She asked which of the four bus stations we had come into, but I never bothered to find out. I had to ask someone hanging around outside, and just repeat it phonetically because I had no idea what she had said. About 10 minutes later, a van pulled up with a woman talking on a cell phone; it looked like a taxi, but we got in. She handed us a laminated note saying that fuel prices had risen recently, and it would cost Y2 to get to Mama Naxi's, rather than being free. Hey, we were on our way.
When we arrived to the dirt lot located somewhere in the maze of cobbled streets known as Lijiang, we were met by a stoic girl who led us to the guesthouse. We later found out that there are three guesthouses owned by Mama Naxi, and this was the original. We were shown a room, and took it. Then the weirdness began, at least to me. A lady who had some wrinkles but clearly had energy urged us to sit down and eat some bread, then a banana. We were happy to sit for a few minutes after our trip through the mountains. I petted her cat, and we put our feet by the stove under the table. After about half an hour of sitting and chatting with the stoic girl (Nick got her to laugh), I wondered why she hadn't asked for any money, nor left us alone. I went upstairs to sort out the load of laundry I needed to do, and prepare for the shower I needed to take. I went back downstairs to assess what was going on; Nick had sensed that I wanted to do something else, so he told the stoic girl we wanted to look around the town, and she was prepared to show us the way. After some whispered conversation and glances from the Chinese hosts, we decided to express our preferences: pay for the room, take a shower, do laundry. It worked! We had heard that Mama Naxi cooks dinner at 6 PM, and it's a flat fee to eat around a big table with others (8-10 dishes of food!). We were shown over to "Number 3" where the dining room had big glass windows looking out onto the cobbled street. There we met Winslow, a nice guy who is from New York or Toronto, depending on his conversation partner's views on the US. Another guy was from Seattle/Vancouver. Winslow mentioned that if you want to take a trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge, you show up at 9 AM for breakfast, then when "Mama" comes around saying (yelling) "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!" you raise your hand and she gets you there. Then she came out; the woman who welcomed us earlier in the day was in fact Mama. She ran checking in; she ran dinner; she ran side trips; she bought plane and bus tickets. She ran everything.
The name "Mama Naxi's" isn't only a reference to her, but the way that she runs it -- in the traditional matriarchal methods of the Naxi people. Mama was loud, fast, and happy. Her husband, aptly called "Baba," was the opposite: quiet, plodding, and content. Seeing them interact was fun. He got lots of things done if any guests needed anything, but he blended with the background. We thought about taking that side trip, but weren't convinced. After dinner we walked around the town and got lost like a good tourist should.The next morning we got up and went to breakfast. A few minutes into the biggest banana pancake I've ever seen, five Peace Corps friends and their polish traveling friend Anna walked in. P* started talking to Nick about buses flipping over and ice, and pushing a bus. I thought all that had happened to them. After I established that they had not been on a bus that flipped, I went back to my pancake. About a month earlier, K* and M* planned an extensive 3-week hiking trip that went around various lakes, Tiger Leaping Gorge, and smaller towns in northern Yunnan province. They weren't supposed to be in Lijiang then. K* sat down and told me that they had arrived the previous night after a harrowing trip to Lugu lake:
They left on a bus to Lugu lake with the expectation of cold, but good weather. Over some of the mountain passes, it began to snow heavily. The bus slowed; the trip continued. The road iced over eventually and the bus slid a little. The bus slowed, but kept on, around switchbacks and turns with no guardrails with sheer drops. The bus slid again (not fishtailed, slid), and the passengers followed directions when they were asked to get out and walk. They didn't know it at the time, but this was the beginning of the storm that was to drop 8 inches of snow on them overnight and knock out power and travel for millions of Chinese across southern China. They stayed at Lugu lake for 3 days until a bus finally tried to get out. This bus, back to Lijiang, had to head back over some of the mountains that were iced over on the way in. So early in the trip this bus began to get stuck pretty often. So, paying passengers again had to get out and not only walk up icy mountain roads, but also help push the bus. K* is female, so she and all the males got off the bus so that it could actually get up the mountain. This pushing and walking (they helped other vehicles as well) went on for hours, and the trip took something like 12 hours as opposed to the 6 it should have. Talk about a nice hiking vacation. One online journal of one of the group is here.
They had basically ditched their plans to continue on the trip, and to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge for at least a little hiking before just going home. They were going that afternoon. We also met some great Germans who were studying Urban Design in Shanghai who were going to the gorge the following day. We spent the afternoon at a restaurant/coffee shop/movie spot reading, eating, and watching "Elizabethtown." And we decided to go to the gorge the following day as well.
Tiger Leaping Gorge 虎跳峡: 2008.02.03 - 2008.02.04
After two gigantic pancakes, we boarded the private Mama Naxi mafia taxi to Tiger Leaping Gorge with 6 other unsuspecting foreign travelers. Just kidding. It was the Germans from Shanghai, a Brit-cum-Australian named Paul and a couple from the UK. On the two hour ride we talked about various aspects of China including healthcare, education, and traveling. We found out that the couple from the UK (Helen and Jamie) were on a 10-month trip around the world (at least overland from England to China) because they were burned out from stuffy jobs and life in London. They had spent 4 months in Kyrgyzstan in the middle of their trip doing work with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Alpine Fund.
Upon arrival, we bought entrance tickets: Y50 for Nick, and Y25 for me because I am a "student," at least according to my University of Florida ID card. We then set off - some others were waiting, but we wanted to get on the trail. We had at least 6 hours of hiking starting at 12:30 PM, and needed to get to the guesthouse before dark. Our hiking partners ended up being Paul, Helen, and Jamie. Paul was a contracted programmer writing software for compiling tax information from companies in New South Wales. Helen is from southeast England; Jamie is from Scotland. On our six-hour hike, we got to know quite a bit about each other. I won't tell you everything I learned, as they haven't posted it on their own travel website. I will, however, say that they seem to have retained a spirit of innocent adventurism after seeing a good majority of the world and fighting for development work in Kyrgyzstan. Jamie has done a motley array of work in TV production (with hilarious stories galore), and Helen worked for an NGO back in London. About 15 minutes into the hike, the sun came out in full force. I kept my eyes to myself, but I think everyone but me just stripped down to get rid of long underwear. Helen was last, and barely made it before we were passed by a car coming up the hill ...
Two hours in, and after a snack of oranges, Snickers bars, and plenty of water, we hit the notorious "28 turns." It's a steep section of short cutbacks on top of a dried stream tramped down by horse hooves. We did it, but it was plagued by blinding sun (think L'etranger), frequent stops, and cramming our bodies against the rocks as to avoid being trampled by passing horses and the guys offering to take us to the top. At least they always kept the horses to the outside so they didn't get themselves or us pushed down a gravelly slope. When we finally reached the top of that particular mountain, the view was to die for, or at least to charge for. There was a small family outfit: wife sells drinks, man charges Y8 to allow pictures to be taken from a jutting path to the view. I didn't take pictures in an effort to rest and drink in the view, but Jamie's camera slung around his neck seems to have taken at least 5 pictures during that time, after which he claimed victory: "You can't charge for the fecking view." 
After that, the hike was great: flat land, shade, waterfalls, gorge views. We got to the Half Way Guesthouse at about dusk, where we were supposed to meet some of the Peace Corps friends. We got dorm beds because of the private room waiting for us back in Lijiang, and found M* and K*, K* with two duvets and a bottle of rehydration salts next to her. She had overlooked some signs of illness before starting the hike, and then it hit full tilt on the 28 turns. She walked, vomited, walked, vomited, and eventually hired one of those horses to bring her the whole way to the guesthouse. We're glad she made it! We had dinner and met two other volunteers from Project Trust, who work in a town 3 hours from ours. Crazy, to meet at a guesthouse on the side of a gorge 2000 km from our school. 
The next day we hiked a few hours down to the low road to catch a van back along the gorge. We were really tired from the previous day, so we didn't feel like staying around for a long time. We also wanted to stay with M* and K*, who wanted to hike out despite not eating much yet. We found out later that you could climb rope ladders down to the water - we'll do that next time. Along the way, we probed them for M*'s planned U.S. presidential bid in, I don't know, 2020? We told him the only problem with our giving our unconditional support was that another friend from Gainesville, Steve, had claimed us first. Maybe they'll run in different years. Also I asked K* about her role as First Lady - she said she'd do more than reading campaigns; rather she'll work on banning meat from the kitchen and solar panel installation (you have to get past those historical societies). We had to cross two more waterfalls (literally walk on rocks through them), and it was another beautiful day. The van we took back to the start of the hike had a nice rearview mirror ornament with red string and a tassle, and a glass picture of a young Chairman Mao, looking over all of us. We had lunch at Jane's Guesthouse, and then got another one of Mama Naxi's mafia taxis back to town.Lijiang: 2008.02.04 - 2008.02.06
We spent two more nights in Lijiang and took the long day bus back to Kunming, where we could only hope to buy train tickets back north for the following day. We went to coffee shops with K* and M* (watched another movie, Phonebooth), and bargained for two beautiful loom-woven scarves (less than half of the asking price!!). We bargained by splitting up between two shops and yelling back and forth the prices we were told, playing the shops off each other. By the time Nick had gotten down to Y25 for my scarf, we decided to buy one for him as well. The shop girl was practically in tears because of our diligence. We showed off our scarves to Baba Naxi, where he assured us we had gotten them for cheap (high five, us). I thought about feeling bad, about pushing too hard, but the I remembered we were in a tourist mecca during the off-season. These people live well, and for all the other foreign tourist they've ripped off, I felt fine. Before we left Lijiang, we said goodbye to K* and M* and our other friends, as well as Paul, Jamie, and Helen.Kunming: 2008.02.06 - 2008.02.07
The bus to Kunming was empty, literally. There were 2 other passengers and at least 3 bus employees. At least we could sleep in peace. We decided to stay at the Camellia hostel for a change of pace and sights, and it was the eve of the Lunar New Year (we'd also heard that they have a Y15 Western breakfast buffet). We were lured to the hotel restaurant that night with promises of 'games' and 'many foreigners.' Sounds like fun, yeah? They had a dumpling-making activity for the hotel guests, then served the dumplings for free. We realized that this was perfect because no Chinese would eat the dumplings; they were the ugliest and most varied ones we'd ever seen. After that we decided that we should do something for the first time in China: visit Wal-Mart. It was right around the corner.
Chinese Wal-Marts are just like the other big foreign stores: cereal and chocolate, vegetables and chicken feet. They did have some Equate brand hygeine items, though. On the second floor we saw some Americans (you learn to overhear with intention in China), and I asked one "Have you ever seen grape jelly in China?" She said no, and her husband walked over to join her. Nick pointed them to another section with more jams. I asked, like I do when I meet nice-looking foreigners, if they were teachers. The guy answered and said yes, but that they were also missionaries. Quite frank for a question like that. So I asked what their background tradition was, and lo and behold, it was Church of Christ. We ended up talking to them for at least half an hour about living in China. Then we started name-dropping, and found out that they knew many of the same people we did in Florida, and we had quite a bit in common. It even got to the point where Nick's great-grandmother could have been related to this guy's family up in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Finally, the lost cousins in China! If you had changed the surrounding Wal-Mart to, say, someone's house, I would have felt completely at home. I just nearly, very nearly, forgot I was in China. It was great for that moment.
The next day we found a restaurant and coffee spot before catching the train, the long train back home.
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