From Guilin to Lijiang

We decided to spoil ourselves from here on, and instead of taking +20 hours bus rides, we are going to fly!

Unfortunately, there weren't any available tickets to Lijiang (where we wanted to go), so we had to settle for a ticket going from Guilin to Kunming, which is about 8 hours drive from Lijiang.
We headed to Guilin airport, happier than ever!



At the airport, we found clerks to be very busy and working actively:



We arrived to Kunming, and had to go through the typical hassle at the airport, where an official information officer told us that to get to the bus station we need to take their minibus (which cost 40 per person), while our guide specifically said that a taxi cost no more than 15....
Anyhow, we went to the bus station to buy tickets from Kunmin to Lijiang, and when we got there we discovered that there is a sleeper bus that leaves in two hours. We thought about it and then decided to take it to save a day. That was a mistake...
We waited in the bus for nearly an hour (after the alleged departure time). During which, we discovered that the bus was infested with flies and cockroaches.
We escaped from the bus in the last minute, went to complain about the horrible conditions at the ticket office and exchanged our tickets for an early express bus (which we hoped, was without the extra stow-away passengers on board).

We woke up next morning, went again to the bus station and were very happy to find a good bus that took us to Lijiang.
The way from Kunming to Lijiang is AMAZING!!!! going through the beautiful city called Dali.
Maayan spent most of the time trying to take pictures during the ride:


After 8 hours we finally arrived to Lijiang. We went to the old town area, where we found beautiful old houses with Chinese architecture. Note the mountain at the background, it is 5400m!!! The town itself lies at 2400m.







We found a nice cosy little guest house with a nice window view:

and a good place to eat breakfast:


We roamed the streets (truly, a labyrinth):

In each street there are dozens of small shops that sell anything from scarves, bags from Yak leather, bells and spectacular carved paintings.
Maayan hassled the shop keepers and inquired how to play a Chinese game:

while Shay found interesting people to photograph:

Here is a typical street with shops on both sides:

And some beautiful wood carved pictures:

We ate at a nice restaurant with an inner yard that had the symbol of long life.
The circular one represents the heaven, while the square represents the earth, and they are connected. Just beautiful!