back in Lijiang..... - May 3, 2009 - Lijiang, Yunnan, China

03/05/09 - 05/05/09

Bus ride back to Lijiang was painless. As we went down in elevation, I started to be able to breath better.

We did have a funny experience waiting for the bus in Shangri-la. We were sitting inside and Jim was approached by a pretty ragged looking smiling monk. (It had been more than a few days since Jim had shaved.) The monk saw Jim, walked over, took his face in both hands and rubbed his beard and laughed. Then he took Jim's head in his hands and gently (? maybe) headbutted him about 8 or 9 times - smiling the whole time..and just walked away. We both looked at each other rather bewildered...we asked a few of the Chinese back in Lijiang why he would have done that but no one knew. ??????

The rest of our time in Lijiang was catch up time. I started to feel better - we got some laundry done and I was able to catch up on our journals.

Up early on the 5th, leaving Yunnan Provence - a bit sad. Our visits to Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Tiger Leaping were wonderful...but now we're off to Xian.