Lijian - Streets - Foto stock

This is a shot of one of the maze of ancient streets and alleyways that make up Lijian's Old Town. I pretty much loved this place. Sure it's littered with (chinese) tourists but in just 6km you can walk from a modern bustling chinese metropolis, through the 1400 year old part of the city and beyond to subsistence farming in the Naxi villages collecting in the harvest. Just 3km outside of the millions of dollars that pass through the tourist zones we found ourselves in a village where the average family income is $450 a year! Unfortunately the Chinese authorities deem freedom of speech and information far too dangerous for your average Joe so our blog is blocked to us and we cannot update (not that anybody reads it anyway :P) but hopefully by the middle of November we'll be able to update with what we have written (and the photos to accompany of course)Happy days, thanks for looking.