Baoshan, The Stone City

The first of our three rounds of visitors have arrived! Our friend Iris managed to negotiate in country travel and successfully found the Lijiang airport. After only 36 hours in China we piled her into a car and headed off to Baoshan, the famed stone city. We chose a driver with a passenger car for this adventure thinking it would be a bit more comfortable than our usual brain jarring minivan rides. The driver is a friend of a friend and has been driving for 30 years (and he doesn't smoke!). Things were ok in spite of the drizzle that began as soon as we left Lijiang. We couldn't see much of the mountain we were circumnavigating, though we saw plenty of tourists in the ubiquitous red rental coats.

We thought it was a bit unusual that our driver didn't seem to be able to shift the car in gear as we wound our way up into the mountains on dirt road. Apparently he shard our opinion because he stopped the car and spent about 15 minutes fiddling with the gear shift and clutch trying to gear the car in gear, any gear! After many futile attempts he flagged down a ride and indicated for us to stay where we were, not that we could really go anywhere. Li explored the forest and we amused ourselves for an hour and half (I had to prevent Steve from dissecting the car with his Gerber tool) until our driver returned in a minivan. He indicated that the minivan would take us to Baoshan and he would be there tomorrow. Thinking bad thoughts about transmissions and having blind faith that something would work we piled into the minivan and bumped our way down the road towards Baoshan. Enroute we picked up an array of passengers including a woman who vomited the entire drive, which in turn encouraged Li to vomit. It's hard to blame them given the curves in the road and the precipitous drop offs. Remarkably we ended up at the Baoshan a few hours late and were escorted into our guesthouse in the stone city.

The village of Baoshan is perched on top of a stone mesa overlooking the Yangtze River. Rice and wheat terraces extend 2000 feet up valley and provide a spectacular backdrop to this landscape. We spent our weekend playing by the river, walking though terraces, taking photographs, eating and marveling at the livestock who have mastered going up and down stone steps. Each narrow alley in town offers places to explore. The only downside was "evil dog", a 10 pound mutt who charged at us repeatedly from his stoop. We were pleasantly surprised when our driver did indeed show up the next day with his car repaired. Our trip home was eventful only when the cops threatened our driver (who stopped in the middle of the road to let Iris and Steve take pictures). For any of you who know Iris, you will understand that all these things will be blamed on her.

Check out the pictures of Baoshan, it is truly a remarkable place!