We went to Luguhu, or Lugu Lake, that lies across the border of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in China. Since I’d been to Luguhu once, back in 2002, from Lijiang, Yunnan, this time we mainly stayed on the Sichuan side. Flew from Hong Kong to Chengdu then never left the surface of the earth, went via Xi Chang to Luguhu and back, 9 days, such a trip! It was arduous, refreshing, appealing, daunting and unforgettable all at the same time.
I think I’d put the pictures up first. (All photos taken by me using an IXUS, all photos un-photoshopped. When unauthorised, please do not use, thanks!)
Now, let’s start not from the very beginning, but from Xichang, the capital city of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Liangshan literally translates “cool mountain”.
After one night on the train, we arrived Xichang
at the break of dawn, there was Yi/Nuosu script
at the top of the train station, we knew we had
entered the Nuosu people’s area now.
Remember him? The Nuosu hero Zhyge Alu trying to
shoot the sun, well in Xichang the sunshine is a bit
too strong…
No this isn’t dreamworks, it’s the statue of
Daughter of the Moon. Xichang is also known as
the Moon City. Hmmmm, I haven’t quite worked
out whether she’s Han or Nuosu?
Afterwards we had lunch under a tree right by Qionghai lake.
(hands belong to John our dear hard working guide)
1, 2, 3, open! Watch out the jumping fresh
“drunken prawn”! Mouth watering yummy…
Don’t mind the spiders in the tree, cold
Snow Beer anyone?
Luoji Mountain, on the cable car ride up you feel like
going into fairyland, white clouds scudding around
you. This is Heilongtan, or Black Dragon Pond, this
scene has an end-of-the-world quality, I wonder
if one jumps from the red-roofed house into the
clouds, could he enter another world?
For some reason they looked like a good couple to me,
this was when high altitude sickness started to kick in.
Luoji Mt. is 4300m above sea-level, unfortunately my
limit is around 3500m, tried and tested. A pounding
headache seized me, my heart started to race, limbs
felt weak. I stopped photo taking. On the cable car
ride (45 min.) down Chippy got sick and this scared
the sh*t out of RS. I was in the another cable car with
John so I didn’t have to see that. John and I were also
exhausted we decided to save our breaths from talking.
The next day we went to Clay Forest in
Huanglianguan, where there was no-one but
the four of us: Chippy, RS, me and John, oh
and maybe, several fish that were jumping
out of the mud colored water,
which surprised us very much.
Under these columns I stopped and felt very
sick and vomited (remember: go back and
check the same spot to see if the bush is
taller and greener next year).
The Clay Forest looked like a deserted city
from ancient times, with a suggestion of
buried treasure somewhere underneath.
The path winding in it was demanding:
unpaved, narrow and steep, sometimes
very slippery.
This bridge looked quite Indiana Jones-ish to me.
Still no-one in sight but I heard singing, it turned
out to be our driver Yang, he was standing and
waving to us from the top of a hill. He was with
a girl, the girl had a tea-house up there.
So we went to the tea-house/inn. As I expected,
we were the only customers, the place was quiet,
clean and spacious. The house had a rustic style
to itself, inside of which was cool, it sheltered
us from the glaring sun. The girl and her father
were managing it, family business. Yang
chatted them up, turned out that they were
actually Hakka but moved here generations
ago. We had tea and hot water and rested.
I imagined it to be a tea-house in ancient
times where wayward swordsmen met
and exchanged glances and, information
about hidden dragon treatures.
TBC…
