Day 10 – Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

For the first time in a few days, I’m back to travelling all by my lonesome again. It’s not too bad since it means I get to do whatever I want now. I’ve actually decided on my destination last night already – time to finally check out the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (from now on referred to as Jade, cbf typing), whose backside I been staring at the entire time at Tiger Leaping Gorge. Getting there shouldn’t be too hard since many sources point to a direct public bus leaving not too far from where I am staying, so time to make my way there (on another bus). First a little breakfast off a random dingy restaurant off the side of the road – fried egg & dumplings

I arrive at the place to catch the bus, directly opposite a big statue of Chairman Mao. Grouping up and being schooled in China you’re pretty much taught to idolise this guy, it’s not until you get out of China that people tell you he’s done some questionable things. Nevertheless, to me he’s just some dead guy now.

Public bus usually conjure a sense of legitimacy and decent organisation, but that doesn’t really apply in China. I quickly find out that this public “bus” is no more than a 7 seat mini-van with no timetable. Basically the route to the Jade is called Line 7, but seems like each driver owns/rents his own minivan and a group of them arrive at the bus station every morning and operate on a first come first serve basis – when one bus is filled it takes off. I was the 3rd person to arrive and a couple before me has already been waiting for 30 minutes. It takes almost another 30 minutes for the bus to fill up and by the time we leave everyone’s pretty impatient, it’s not exactly a comfortable and spacious mini-van either but good thing I took the front seat by coming early, don’t have to squeeze with these peasants.

The bus driver makes a stop at a specialised store for tourists going to the Jade, and they specialise in renting out those big puffy coats and oxygen canisters… I’m 90% sure the driver gets a commission for funneling them here, since the passengers are like omg do we need this and he is like yeh man up there you’re gonna struggle to breath, this place is the cheapest buy it here, and they all scramble out to get some oxygen. Only I remain in the van and the driver is like you should go get some, but I was like nah oxygen is free. Seriously though I’ve been at that altitude a few times, sure it gets hard to breath and you run out of breath real fast but YOU DON’T NEED TO PAY FOR EXTRA OXYGEN WTF? (Unless you have asthma or is really old). I also didn’t need a coat, my t-shirt + sweater + waterproof jacket should be enough.

I basically didn’t talk the whole bus trip there that some passengers thought I was a Korean dude who can’t speak Chinese lol. But instead I was just either napping or checking out the views. We get to the entrance at which point every tour bus is checked, there’s a pretty expensive fee to get in (by China standards, I actually forgot how much it was but probably like $50 AUD), the bus driver chucks another dodgy by stopping early and asking the 4 people squished in the back row to literally hide in the boot. This way they can avoid paying the entrance fee and in return give a “tip” to the driver, I don’t even…

It works however and the inspector didn’t realise (or they are in on the act too, won’t be surprised). We get dropped off inside and the driver attempts to secure some business by telling us we might as well pay him for the return trip now, go up/down as a group and get picked up by him in a few hours as a group. Knowing that I don’t want to be stuck around these peasants all day and there’s some extra places I wanted to visit apart from the main place, I tell him no thanks you dodgy cunt.

Once inside, we take a cable car to the top of the mountain, which offers some amazing views of the surrounding area.

Once at the top, we have to trek a little more to reach the end, which is just beneath the summit of 5000m.

It takes about 15-20 minutes if you’re not a potato who needs oxygen canisters, and after like 3 minutes I’ve already left the rest of our group in the dust. The key is try not to go too fast and take slow steps, as you get exhausted really quick since the air up here is really thing, but again that does not mean you need to resort to being a pussy and paying for oxygen that’s literally free all around you.

The very top part you can reach here is 4680m, as a sign helpfully points out for you. This isn’t actually the highest I’ve been, as I reached 5000m in Bolivia once. However, that didn’t have the combination of height and cold, and this place had much more spectacular views (the Bolivian place literally is a rocky desert).

As you’d expect, everything is frozen or covered in snow around here, which makes for some great views of glaciers running down the side of the mountain

The snow here is fresh and powdery, would be pretty awesome to snowboard if there wasn’t the risk of plummeting to your death. You could probably spend about 30 minutes up here just wandering around, but any more than that you’d probably get bored. I begin my return journey and on the way I pass by some of my fellow passengers squeezing their oxygen canister -_-

Once at the bottom, there’s no shortage of all kinds of transportation offering to take you to different places in the national park. From my research, there’s 3 meadows around the park that doubles as viewing points, all of which are accessible by cable car. I figured now that I’ve been to the very top, going to viewing points at a lower altitude is pretty pointless if just for the sake of looking around. So I decide to check out the furthest meadow called the Yak meadow, partly because the Bible tells me there’s usually a lot of yaks running around and grazing. Since it’s the furthest one, usually not many people opt to go there, and on this particular day, NOBODY did. I’m literally the only person on the official shuttle bus and the driver is basically laughing at me, literally 5eva alone.

However, it does mean I get a personalised ride that took me through the countryside with some nice views. Seems like it’s a slow day overall and the bus driver is happy to have a chat with me while driving.

But then holy shit, I saw this amazing lake that’s pretty much the prettiest thing I’ve seen on this trip. I have no idea what it is and the bus driver tells me it’s called the Blue Moon Lake. I remember seeing it in the Bible and kinda just dismissed it as the description was basically – it’s a blue lake, with no info about how amazing it looks.

It wasn’t kidding about being blue though. I tell myself I’ll definitely check this place out on the way back.

After about 45 minutes we arrive at the cable car to Yak’s meadow. The bus driver tells me he isn’t anticipating any more tourists to come here so he might as well take a nap here until I’m done, and then take me back. I walk up to the cable car and the people manning it are also taking a nap…seems like nobody came here today, I had to tap the glass on their office to wake them up and start the cable car. And one dingy cable car it was…this wasn’t built recently like the one that goes all the way to the top…

It’s also slow af, takes like a solid 20 minutes to reach the top even though it’s only like 3500m high. Not being that high, it isn’t covered in snow but still looks pretty awesome, with the snowy peaks as the backdrop.

As you can probably tell by the photo, there was no yak -_______-, it’s like the 100 chicken temple all over again. There was however a fuk tonne of yak shit, if you don’t follow this poorly built wooden pathway then you’re bound to step in some yak poop.

It actually made me feel like using the toilet but there wasn’t any around. I followed the path which goes around the meadow, looking for a bush or something. But thank god I walked a bit further because in this literal wasteland there was a random Tibetan monk just sitting there looking at the sky. Good thing I saw him first.

After I’ve seen everything, I circle back to where I saw the monk thinking I could ask him about this area, but he’s disappeared. I see a small temple in the distance and figures that’s probably where he went. Rather surprised there is a temple here and once I make my way inside, there he is praying. He tells me that he is the only monk here during winter, must be extremely boring…

Anyway that’s everything there is to see here, was kinda disappointing but also a much more peaceful and less touristy area to check out. I get back on the bus but we’re walled in by a bunch of goats returning from their daily grazing. I find it pretty cool how these goats don’t need anyone to watch over them, they make their own way to the field everyday and then back.

The bus driver kindly drops me off at the Blue Moon Lake and wow it is just as good as I first saw it. I don’t know what makes the lake blue like this, but it looks beautiful.

I mean the snow mountain was cool but this would probably have to be the highlight of the day just for the surprise factor. There were even some couples taking their wedding photographs here, which doesn’t sound like a bad idea!

I found the Line 7 mini-vans here that offers to take you directly back to the Chairman Mao statue which is convenient, saves me from having to go back to the main area. Overall I think this place is good but not necessarily a must visit. It’s probably not necessary to see both this and Cangshan in Dali, but if I had to choose one I’d choose the Jade (the lake helps too!).

It’s nightfall when I get back to Lijiang Old Town and I’m pretty hungry. There aren’t many good food places in the Old Town as they are all quite touristy, so I thought if I’m going touristy I might as well go full touristy. So I tried out the one niche that both China and Australia have, but does very differently – Pizza Hut. Aussie Pizza Hut is basically the shittest pizza you can find, they aren’t even cheap anymore and I’m not sure if their attempt at their fancy pizza actually fools anyone. But here in China holy shit Pizza Hut is like the finest of dining. I ordered a gourmet chicken pizza, some chicken wings and a ice tea and even the service feels like a fancy restaurant.

I spend the rest of the night wandering through the Old Town, seriously this place is massive and there are so many different types of stores here, all pretty unique in their own ways. Here’s some people exercising/dancing in an open area

I’ll try my best to describe these stores…here’s a shop that weaves stuff (sorry about shit quality)

This one specialises in traditional paper making, they sell note books, fans, lamps and all sorts of stuff made out of this thick, coarse paper

There’s a wax museum with a statue of Putin and a Terry Crews-like security guard at the front. The security guard statute is actually quite well made and it even has a head that turns, fooled quite a lot of people lol.

Lot’s of food stalls around here and a pretty common item is the 4 bugs of Yunnan. The dude cooking them kept pressuring me to try some and I finally gave in. I’m not sure what the 4 bugs are but I think two of them are silkworm and some crickets.

It was actually pretty expensive, like $10 just for that small serving -.- and it didn’t even taste that good. If you can get over the fact that they are bugs, they don’t actually have much taste at all…so just try it for the novelty factor I guess.

This stall sells some colourful ice cream, good way to wash your mouth after those bugs.

This store carves out flower lantern candles out of wax I think?

Here’s the African drums I talked about yesterday, they are EVERYWHERE and every stall plays the exact same store. I have no idea how they got so popular here but surely there aren’t that many people buying African drums -_-

You can buy a flower shaped styrofoam boat and float it down the many streams that flow through the Old Town. Apparently they help make wishes come true but I heard people just wait at the end of the stream every night to collect the boats, then sell them again the next day -.- next level tourist trap.

This store sells ancient Chinese bells. I mean I have no idea who wants bells and I doubt a random store in a tourist area has authentic antique bells of any actual value. Some of them were like in the $1000’s but sounds like they are just kidding themselves. This one bell was like $500 AUD. Pass.

And here’s the ultimate scam -_________-

Got hungry walking around so even if I didn’t see any yaks today, at least I ate some yak skewers. These were huge compared to the normal skewers you see, but also more pricey at 20 yuan each, which I bargained down to 15.

Here’s a final picture of a busy street in the Old Town, with the moon as a backdrop. You can easily spend a whole night walking around here and getting lost!

As one of my last nights on this trip, I decide to live in a bit of luxury by upgrading my hostel dorm to their penthouse ensuite, with views of the entire Old Town from 3rd storey lul.

I mean to be fair the room was spacious, clean and comfortable, so for 160 yuan a night I see no reason why I’d go pay double/triple that at a hotel, for more less the same thing.