Some 150km north of Dali through numerous Bai and Yi hamlets, roads make their final descent from the ridges to a plain dominated by the inspiringly spiky and ice-bound massif of
Yulong Xue Shan , the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Nestled to the southeast among green fields and dwindling pine forests is
LIJIANG , capital of the
Naxi Kingdom , whose centuries-old maze of winding lanes and clean streams, wooden wineshops, weeping willows and rustic stone bridges are alone worth the journey here. Lijiang is by no means an entirely traditional, undiscovered haven, however, partly due to a devastating
earthquake which destroyed a third of the town in 1996. Having invested heavily in rebuilding, the government now aims to profit through tourist development, and while restorations have been largely tasteful where carried out, Lijiang's
Naxi seem often marginalized as players in a cultural theme-park. They deserve better: the Naxi are descended from a race of Tibetan nomads who settled the region before the tenth century, and until recently a matriarchal society, they brought with them what are still considered some of the sturdiest horses in China, and a shamanistic religion known as
Dongba . A blend of Tibetan Bon, animism and Taoist tendencies, Dongba's scriptures are written with unique pictograms, and its pantheistic
murals still decorate temples around Lijiang, a good excuse to explore nearby
villages by bicycle. For some background reading before you leave home, try to find the exhaustive, two-volume
Ancient Nakhi Kingdom of Southwest China by eccentric botanist-anthropologist
Joseph Rock , who lived here back in the 1930s.
While Lijiang and nearby villages are good for an easy few days, there are more ambitious trips to consider west to the small towns of Shigu and Weixi , or the excellent two-day hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge due north of Lijiang. Farther afield, those heading east into Sichuan via the rail head at Panzhihua or remote Lugu Lake have the chance to delve deeper into regional cultures.
The Town
Orientated north-south,
Xin Dajie is Lijiang's three-kilometre-long main street. Just about everything west of this line is modern, but east, behind
Lion Hill 's radio mast, is where you'll find the old town, know locally as
DAYAN . It's not easy to navigate around Dayan's backstreets, but as there are few particular sights this hardly matters. While you wander, try to peek in around the solid wooden gates of
Naxi houses . These substantial two-storey homes are built around a central paved courtyard, eaves and screens carved with mythological figures and fish, representing good luck. Family houses are very important to the Naxi - Lijiang was formerly organized into clans - and many people spend a large part of their income maintaining and improving them.
All roads into Dayan lead to its core at Sifang , the main marketplace . Well geared up to the tourists who come to buy embroidery, hand-beaten copper pots, and wooden carvings of hawks and cockerels, cheap restaurants around the square make it a fine place to stop and watch for older people wearing traditional dark tunics and capes patterned in cream and blue, representing the cosmos. North from here, Dong Dajie is lined with touristy, wooden-fronted souvenir shops (though you have to admire the work that has gone into these new buildings), while heading south takes you right into Dayan's maze, where you'll encounter more locally oriented markets and characterful streets. West, cobbled lanes lead up to views of tiled roofs from the fringes of Lion Hill , whose forested crown is topped by wooden Wangu Lou (¥15), an overbuilt, 22-metre-high pavilion. Below here, the southern part of Dayan didn't survive the earthquake and has been replaced by a complex of weighty Qing-style stone pavilions and ornamental arches, all emphatically Han Chinese and totally inappropriate for the town. Less at odds with local character, the southern boundary is marked by Baimalong Tan , an old, dragon-headed spring and washing-pool in front of a small temple and tangled garden,
When you've had enough of strolling the streets, head up to Black Dragon Pool Park (daily 7am-late evening; ¥10) on Lijiang's northern outskirts. Less contrived than the average public space in China, the sizeable pool is also known as Yuquan (Jade Spring), after the clear, pale green water which wells up from the base of surrounding hills. With Yulong Xue Shan behind, the elegant mid-pool Deyue Pavilion is outrageously photogenic - in the early afternoon, you can watch traditionally garbed musicians performing Naxi music in the western halls.
A path runs around the shore between a spread of trees and buildings, passing first the cluster of compounds which comprise the Dongba Cultural Research Institute . The word "dongba" relates to the shamans themselves, about thirty of whom are still alive and kept busy here translating twenty thousand rolls of the old Naxi scriptures, dongba-jings, for posterity. Farther around, and almost at the top end of the pool, is a group of halls imported in the 1970s from the site of what was once Lijiang's major temple, Fuguo Si . The best of these is Wufeng Lou, the Five Phoenix Hall , a grand Ming-dynasty palace with a triple roof and interior walls embellished with reproductions of Baisha's temple murals.
