Day 109: Lijiang (丽江) – October 4th

Deciding in the morning that we didn’t really want to continue paying outrageous prices to stay in an uninteresting place, we decided to pack and move on to the next stop along the road to Kunming. The next stop is the even more popular destination, the ancient town of Lijiang.

We took a 1pm bus, and despite it being only a 174km, with severe traffic it was more parking lot than anything, and we eventually got arrived in Lijiang at 8pm, about twice as long as what it should’ve been.

The Ancient Town of Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a much better place than Shangri-La, even if it was my first impression. The town is much bigger than most places we’ve been, and the old town is only a small portion of it. We managed to find a hostel and reserved a room despite it being ridiculously busy season. Grabbing a typical bowl of yunnan rice noodles, we headed to the hostel and slept.

One thing we we have to say, is that the hostels in China are spectacular. Clean rooms, friendly prices and coziness is almost mandatory, but they also have spacious common areas for beers and meeting friends. The best part, is they all have their own ‘selling points’, and are decorated fabulously. Compared with hostels in Canada, where it feels a comfy cottage exterior with an hospital-like interior with no points at all for coziness or comfort. Next time anyone travels in China, we highly recommend staying at any hostels!!