Lijiang is accessible only by road from Dali. There is an airport which we will use to go to Guilin via Kunming. But there is more than one route. The main route about 3 hours, the slow route, about 5 hours, or our route, all day. It was a deliberate choice because we wanted to visit the village of Shaxi. The Rough Guide said it was only 50km north of Dali, but actually its more like 150km. From Shaxi you can cut across the mountains by back roads and drop down into Lijiang.

First of all a word or two about Chinese roads. All over China a massive network of expressways are being built. The only thing comparable I can think of is of the US freeway program, which dates back to the mid 20th century. These are typically four lane highway with hard shoulder, and make for easy journeys. In the cities massive flyovers and aerial highways soar among the skyscrapers. Admittedly you do see some odd things on the expressways, women with brushes picking up litter as cars and trucks storm past.

Where there is no expressway you are on the normal roads. Roads between towns are metalled have two lanes and generally a hard shoulder. These roads are massively overcrowded. Small trucks powered by two stroke engines laden with stones, farm produce etc struggle along at about 20mph. Cars, buses and large trucks weave in between. You must overtake the vehicle in front of you at all costs, so even police cars can be seen crossing white lines, universally ignored and storming down the centre of the highway. You will commonly sea a bus overtaking a bus, overtaking a small truck, as the opposing traffic tries to avoid them preferably without slowing down. The road from Dali to the Linden Centre was about 10 miles and neither of us have ever had so many near death experiences. In the end you just think there is no point looking.

It was therefore with some trepidation that we set off by road for Lijiang. Luckily we had made clear that we did not want a driver with a death wish, we were very happy to go slow. We certainly didn't mind if he failed to overtake every other vehicle on the road.

The road to Shaxi was therefore a slow one, passing through many towns. At first the towns were focussed on construction. One town seemed to consist entirely of brickworks. Small furnaces alongside the road. Another town was clearly clay pot city, but in the Chinese way this means numerous small producers each with their small beehive kiln by the roadside belching out black smoke. Eventually we left the towns and started to climb higher into the mountains. The volume of traffic diminishes, but much the same mix of small buses, trucks, big and little, but now on narrower windy roads. We passed a small truck pulling a car out of the ditch. At the crest of one range a whole line of local people were selling beautiful falcons. Some of which were on their hands, others in bags. The road dips and climbs through one range after another. We were just beginning to panic that the driver had perhaps misunderstood our destination when the small town of Shanxi appeared. To our driver's surprise though the main bridge into town was closed. Various conversations ensued and we arrived via a back road and a farm track.

But what a pleasure when we got out of the minibus. Leading off a small main street with shops and food stalls was a charming tree lined street with a stream running down it. The large trees were clearly newly planted, and some landscaping work was still going down. A local guide showed us a small hostel where we had a beer and something to ear. The building was a mixture of Bai style and Tibetan:- wood build with small courtyards which caught the sun, with a few attractive bedrooms, a bar and tea rooms surrounding. We ate in the warm sun, the temperature in the shade is very cold because of the high altitude. We then walked further down to the beautifully restored market square. On one side stands a theatre, and on the opposite a temple. There were possibly four or five other tourists there, young Chinese, and that was it. No commercialisation, and no crowds. While we enjoyed the attractive town of Dali, Shaxi is a sharp contrast, similar buildings, but without the mass tourism. In the past it was a central town on the tea and horse caravan trail Eastwards, and the market was a centre for horse trading. Now it is a sleepy village in a remote valley again. Sympathetically restored in the last 10 years by a Swiss- Chinese team.

We left Shaxi for the final stage of the journey to Lijiang. The style of housing changes as you travel North, instead of the white walls with ornate paintings that the Bai people favour. These houses are more rudimentary, using mud bricks, characteristically red. Groups of men and women sit outside playing cards. We noticed in one village, 4 or 5 new washing stations with solar heating had been established at key points in the village. There is no running water or modern sewage in these villages. Women wear blue shawls, and most people are in traditional clothes.

Finally the road forked, North for Shangri La, East for Lijiang, with surprisingly a barrier at the beginning of the road to limit traffic to cars and narrow vehicles only. Again the road ascended sharply until we could see the snow mountains to the North of Lijiang. Then descends out of the fields through filthy cement dust from a nearby factory down to Lijiang. The change of clothing is striking because in the new town of Lijiang as elsewhere in Chinese cities, people were once again wearing Western clothes