Lugu Lake, August 6-9

You know those "places you have to see before you die"? Well, I don't mean to imply coming to Lugu Lake will surely send you to your grave (although it's quite possible considering the 8 hour mountain bus trip it takes to get here and to get away), no, it is - hands down - the most beautiful lake I have ever been to. Chrystal clear water that appears to be a deep turquoise color because the lake is so deep, nestled between mountains that look like hills because the lake sits at 2,700m, and almost no-one in sight apart from two or three villages you can see a and few lonely fishing boats... Ok, there is one village which has been hyped up for tourists, i.e. there are souvenir shops (mostly the local silver made into jewelery), guesthouses and cafe's with internet access (and bad restaurants, unfortunately). Other villages are trying to catch up, we saw a lot of new (charming looking) guesthouses going up, but right now transportation around the lake is completely unorganized, there is no regular bus route, and as long as the mini-vans keep charging such horrendous prices (200yuan for a 20min ride), not many people are going to make it into the smaller villages.

The only non-perfect thing about the lake? You're not allowed to swim in it! Well, they can't put signs everywhere, and we saw a few locals take a plunge, so we followed suit... of course it started raining (after weeks of uninterrupted good weather!) at that very moment.

Another great thing about Yunnan - wild mushrooms! In other parts of China they are hard to get and very expensive, but here they're everywhere and soooo tasty! Usually just wok-fried, either with bacon (speck e funghi, anyone?) or with chili and scallions. If they use decent oil, it's hard to spoil!

We had booked a hotel online (it was difficult to find one on the lake, I guess all the smaller guesthouses are not listed on websites), but weren't quite sure where it was, the address just said "on the lake." So, once we got to the first village on the Sichuan side, I called them and they said "Oh, you're in Lige, well, just follow the road" (or something like that - my Chinese is not very good on the phone). People we asked had never heard of this place until finally some Mosu (the local ethnic minority) pointed us to a building on a peninsula - which is still under construction! So, we got there eventually (we climbed up the hill to the main road and haggled down a motor-rickshaw driver to a more reasonable rate than the 50yuan they wanted in the village just for driving us over the hill) and it turns out that the main building is indeed still under construction, but they have a few villas that are already rented out. We got a room with lake view and bath tub right in front of the window to better enjoy it. Apart from everything being a bit unfinished, the rooms were great. And the service very personal - they always asked us what time we'd want breakfast and when they should clean our room. I started feeling a bit guilty that we were occupying so many people and seemed to be the only guests, but the last day we saw more people...

Thankfully they had already opened their restaurant, because it would have been at least a 45min walk into the next village, so we had dinner there after our arrival. At first we were all alone, but they had set two more tables and sure enough, a large group started to pour in for a banquet. Turns out it was the owner of the hotel (a Mosu, as he proudly pointed out, this might explain why the Mosu men we asked about the hotel knew it) who was giving a dinner for his friends from other parts of China, but also local Mosu and some of his staff. We were included into the festivities and first had to drink with the owner, then with his regional and sales manager - two proud Mosu women who were giving the men a run for their money - they kept drinking with everyone (the men had to down their glasses of bai jiu (strong clear liquor) whereas the women were only drinking red wine - nevertheless, they were completely hammered by the time dinner ended and everyone went to the "club" next to the hotel for some Mosu dancing. Quite a few of them put on traditional costumes and practically everyone joined in the dance, which is some kind of line dancing, I suppose. I was quite impressed how well they could remember the steps even when totally drunk. I became best new friends with the regional manager, she kept talking to me all evening about how happy she is we came to her hometown and she wants us to be happy and experience Mosu culture and... sorry... but I'm sooo drunk! :) Of course we had to join the dance and B. was offered cigarettes all the time - the cliche about Yunnanese and smoking is true! It happened to us later in the villages as well, cigarettes are the ice breaker!

Mosu are famous for one thing - their "walking marriage." They are the last minority in China that still practises this enlightened custom. Basically, they don't have any traditional marriage arrangements. Men can stay in a woman's home over night, but leave in the morning to go back to their mother's house. Children belong to the mother and paternity is not considered important. If a relationship ends, the children stay with the mother, but the mother's new partner will also take care of these children. Now, this has led to the misconception among Han Chinese (and maybe also some foreigners), that Mosu woman are always game and don't have to be treated with respect (leading to some hilarious signs - see picture). Apparently, some Han men hope to find an easy one-night stand here. If anything, it's the opposite - we could witness first hand that Mosu women are much more confident than Han Chinese, they run the show and will certainly not put out for any Han guy that shows up with too much of an ego and attitude. Of all the places we visited, the Mosu seemed to have the most Western concept of equality and a certain "normality" about male-female interactions. Among my Han friends, girls always stick together, giggling and holding hands, and male-female interaction is almost always awkward. Among the Mosu, men and women take equal part in running a business, cooking etc. I find this rather surprising, as the Mosu are also Tibetan Buddhists, and those have not exactly struck me as progressive so far...

Our stay ended on a somewhat sad note- I fell victim to altitude sickness. The reason must have been that Xichang is at only 1,600m, so we ascended over 1,000m in just one day. Symptoms include light-headedness, fatigue, shortness of breath, headache, nausea and - who knew - diarrhea (as if we hadn't had enough of this on this trip). So the eight-hour bus ride (through winding mountain roads, interrupted by mud slide induced traffic jams every half hour) it takes to get away from there turned into quite a martyrdom for me. The other eight hours it took from Xichang were already bad enough - motion sickness has always been my foe. So, no more f**ing bus rides!!!