Lijiang

We arrived here yesterday. The old town is a mass of stone and wood houses and narrow alleyways and wall to wall tourists and some locals . We walked up a hill and looked over the interconnected roofs. This morning we went to a nearby town, similarly old buildings but no tourists.

The highlight of the trip so far was a show we have just been to. In an outdoor stadium like thing (at 3100m) with the backdrop of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain ( 5500 m) we saw a performance of Impression Lijiang directed by the guy who did the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. There were over 500 'actors' - many young men having a good time, not trained actors - from 10 ethnic groups, 100 local mountain horses. For 1 1/2 hours they told stories of the people and their history with dancing, singing, horseriding, drum banging, terrific music, elaborate costumes - but just their traditional clothes. Apart from 2 Germans we were the only non Chinese.

I am about to battle the hordes in order to walk to the postoffice. Please donot hold your breathe waiting for a postcard. It has been hard to find postcards, hard to find time to write in them, harder still to find stamps so I have only written a few.