Steve's Day 9 - World's Highest Golf Course

(Steve)

Most of Day 9 was spent outside Lijiang: we drove out to get a better look at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, also called Black & White Mountain because the stone on the Lijiang side appears light while the stone on the opposite side is much darker. After a bit of trouble with our tickets, which Danny quickly handled, we arrived at the "base camp" of sorts. Oddly enough, it's also the site of the world's highest golf course - more on that later. After a few minutes' wait, a bus arrived to drive us further up. On the way we crossed over the river that drains from the mountain's glacier. It was beautiful, and as clear as only mountain water can be. Further upstream we saw people riding yaks out into the middle of the river to have their pictures taken. Then the bus turned away from the river, and the rest of the ride was as steep and winding as any Alpine road. That scared me much more than any of our experiences driving on Chinese highways had, partly because I've never much liked mountain roads and partly because I didn't trust the bus's brakes. Suffice it to say that I was relieved when we arrived at the cable car station. My relief didn't last long though: we soon discovered that "cable car" really meant "chair lift". It was a long and VERY cold trip.

From the top of the lift, it was a bit of a hike. Our destination was a clearing that was famous both for its great view of Yu Long Shan (Jade Dragon Mountain, duh) and because no one knew why such a large space remained free of trees. The latter point, though interesting, wasn't why we were there. As to the former: the view wasn't just great, it was breathtaking. Or it would have been, if we hadn't already been out of breath from the hike and the elevation. We walked around the perimeter of the clearing, and on the way we had our pictures taken in traditional Naxi clothing (which was very warm). We also ran into a group of women dancing, who invited us to join in. Candice and Jill accepted; Molly and I, more suspicious, declined. Five minutes and one rather boring dance later, the women demanded 14 yuan apiece from Jill and Candice. They were able to get away with paying only 10 yuan after convincing the women it was all they had, but the entire incident was a reminder that, in China especially, nothing is free.

After completing our circuit of the clearing, we hiked back to the chair lifts for the somewhat dreaded ride back down. Fortunately, something happened that distracted me from the cold: upon turning around to take a picture of Danny in the chair behind us, I was amazed to see that the woman sitting next to him was feeding him fruit! Given the Chinese view of male-female relationships, and the fact that Danny had just recently been married, I couldn't help being somewhat confused. I soon forgot my confusion, in the rush to get off the chair lift and onto a bus, and then we were rumbling back down the mountain. We stopped at the river long enough to take a spin on the yaks, complete with various increasingly-ridiculous poses for pictures, then continued down to lunch. On the way I also received my answer to the chairlift mystery, though I should have been able to figure it out: the woman I'd seen WAS Danny's wife, and she happened to be doing the same tour that day as he was. That solved, there was nothing to get in the way of my enjoying the food.

We found ourselves, once again, at the site of the world's highest golf course, and once I'd finished eating I set off to get a picture for my dad. Instead, I got lost. Ten minutes later, after climbing through one wall and over two more (though, to be entirely honest, one of them was optional) I met up once again with my somewhat-irritated group, who blamed the entire adventure on my being a boy, which is probably true. Then we got in the van for our trip back to Lijiang.

Our flight wasn't until 9:30 that night, so we decided to go back to the Old City for the rest of the afternoon. We split up: Jill and Candice went to the internet cafe they'd found and Molly and I wandered off into the marketplace. I bought a couple more souvenirs; Molly bought many more scarves. We explored all the major streets around the central square, and some of the minor ones as well, and we even found our way - accidentally - back to the Mu Palace. With an entire afternoon to waste, we had to work to find streets that we hadn't yet been down, and the disappointing discovery that every shop sold essentially the same wares led us to search even harder for unexplored territory. Predictably, we got lost. And, of course, it happened late in the afternoon when we had little time to spare. We made our way back, though, and only about 15 minutes late.

After dinner, we drove to the airport and Danny checked us in. We took our now-traditional picture of Molly, Candice, and I with our guide, then said our goodbyes and headed through security. Thankfully, there were no problems with the flight; since it already wasn't coming in until 11:30, I don't think any of us would have been able to handle the stress of a delay. As it was, we were zombies by the time we got to Chengdu, and getting our baggage took forever. We met our new guide, Han, and I hope I didn't offend him: I said almost nothing on our trip from the airport - irritable as I was, I didn't want to risk saying anything I'd regret. I was still grumpy when we got to the hotel (check-in here always takes a while) but I cheered up a bit when I saw my room - the Tibetan Hotel in Chengdu is easily the nicest one we stayed in. Molly and Candice initially had some trouble getting into their room but, tired as I was, I left them in the hallway and went to my own room. Then, being the brilliant person that I am, I watched House of Wax on HBO. Not a great movie, but it has some cool effects at the end.