Lugu Lake

Instead of flying from Lijiang to Chengdu we decided to explore the overland route. We hopped on a bus with an excitable bunch of Chinese tourists and some time later arrived in the little village of Lige, located on the beautiful Lugu Lake.

The lakes leading tourist attraction is paying quite a bit of money to squash onto a small boat with too many people and having an old woman paddle you off to a uncomfortably distant island. We were shaking with joy at the idea but managed to restrain ourselves and decided on a peaceful walk instead. One of the highlights of travelling in China (or biggest frustrations) is getting to grips with the way they do things. They constantly shock by doing exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. Even though they live in a country that is crammed full of people (with something like a sixth of the world's population) their only wish while travelling is to visit places that are crammed full of people!

The interesting thing about the lake is that the main ethnic group of the area, the Mosu, are one of the last remaining matriarchal systems in the world. In simple terms this means that the women run the show, sitting around smoking and drinking beers and telling their men (plural) which field to tend or child to watch.