Final stop -- Lijiang

Lijiang was the final stop during my five weeks of travel in southern China. From Dali it's only about a 3-hour train ride so we bought Hard Seat (i.e., the cheap seats) tickets for about $5 each. These are the old traditional Chinese green trains, much slower and more basic than the more expensive high-speed trains, which can reach speeds of almost 270 mph!









Back again to visit beautiful Black Dragon Pool, which has some of the most famous views in China.



Like Dali, Lijiang is a popular place for Chinese newlyweds to dress up for wedding photo shoots.


So much tea in Yunnan Province, the most I've seen in my life. Pu'er, a special fermented tea (sometimes fermented for decades) which is a favorite of mine, is produced in this province, and is named after the Yunnan town of Pu'er. Really high quality pu'er tea can be very costly -- more expensive per gram than silver.


We had an excellent early-morning visit to Lijiang's Zhongyi Market, where I bought fruit and dried mushrooms (another treasure from this region of China).


A parting afternoon shot in old town Lijiang before heading to Lijiang's airport, where the plane to Beijing was about 6 hours late, so we didn't get home until around 4 am the following day.