Lijiang

Up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport for my 8am flight. And a slightly different sort of 'help' awaited me when I got there. As I was wheeling my luggage, an official looking bloke rushed up, asked to see my ticket, and then bustled me off to the check in for my flight. Only when we got there did I realise I'd been scammed. He demanded some stupid amount of money for taking me to there. I argued, then pretended to look around for some security type person. The guy backed down and asked for a couple of yuan instead. I was annoyed with myself for falling for it.

After getting my boarding card, I went to get some money out of the ATM. Got the money - but didn't get my card back. Oh. There was no-one to ask, and  no bank attached.

So I just stood there and considered my options. Losing my card on my first full day in China, when I was about to fly over a thousand miles away from this place looked bad. Though I was surprisingly calm, I'm proud to say. I was just about to walk away, when there was a click, and the machine suddenly spat out my card. Phew. Though it seemed that using my card in China was going to be an act of faith from now on.

Breakfast on the plane was interesting. Some kind of (brown) porridge thing made of rice and beans, '1,000 year old' egg on some pickled vegetables, and some leaf flavoured yoghurt. The plane was quite modern. There were drop down TVs, on which was played a three hour long, very emotional Malay family melodrama -  with lots of swearing. It was quite gripping, (and, fortunately subtitiled - which as I was the only non Chinese person on the flight, was surprising).

A driver from the guesthouse picked me up, which was great. The guesthouse itself was lovely - a traditional Naxi home built around a courtyard. And Lijiang itself, a beautiful old town built around and over little rivers and streams. I spent the rest of the day exploring, fascinated by everything, particularly by all the woman (over a certain age), wearing traditional Naxi dress.