Travelling from Lijiang to Chengdu 25/04/11 - 26/04/11

25/04/11 – Lugu Lake

I had a choice to travel back to Kunming or bus it around for a bit before joining a train track so I choose to go to Lugu Lake and after getting up at 06:45 and travelling until 17:30 I’m finally here. The only problem is that I’m 30km on the other side of the lake where I need to get the connecting bus with no way of getting over (cheaply). I will spend the night here and then set off around the lake and hopefully I can hitchhike to the other side. The other problem is, I was told by Panba hostel in Lijiang that not only could I get the Xichang bus here but also that from Lugu Lake to Xichang its 2 hours but it’s about 8.

We arrived here as a storm started, as I was walking in the pissing rain to the hostel I saw a massive bolt of lightning hit the mountain in front of me. After check in I wandered about for an hour along the front, watch a guy slit a chickens throat and then went back to the hostel to have a Chinese meal with the staff (Y15).

After the meal, nothing was happening so after a chat with an Aussie women, I went to bed.

26/04/11 – Travelling….

Left the hostel at 10:30 and started walking around the lake, I managed to hitch a ride part of the way for Y10 and then the rest of the way with another guy for Y20. Although I thought I would be staying in Lugu Town overnight, the second guy that I hitched with pointed me to a bus heading to Yu Yuan, I boarded that for a 3 hour journey and then switched buses for another three. We drove through the mountains of Northern Yunnan throughout the day, all the time I wondered if I would survive a vertical drop if we veered off the road for any reason, then just as we arrived on the outskirts of Xichang and got on the freeway we had a blowout. I think if it had happened any other time of the journey we would have been gonna’s. It’s quite odd that it happened on the best bit of road we had seen instead of the horrendous roads we had been on all day.

After arriving just after 7pm I shared a funny little bike taxi with a women from the bus and somehow managed to buy a ticket for a sleeper bed on a train leaving at 22:40. After that I wandered around the street sellers outside the station and bought a chicken leg for Y6. Now I’m waiting in the station for the train that I will be on for a further 11-13. I have no internet access so no way to book a hostel or even find one when I get off the train.