Rain, you have blessed us at last

Facing the prospect of an 111th consecutive day without rain -- the longest span in 38 years -- Beijing's Air Force seeded the clouds yesterday and brought water down upon the land -- a steady, gooey downpour that made the entire day shitty (and me lose my umbrella).

But today it was beautiful -- crisp, temperate, a thin layer of blue over the light haze -- making the process worth it. I can always get another umbrella, but a clear day in February in Beijing? Bless the Politburo!

Of course, not as beautiful as Lijiang from above, but, well, not much can compare to this:

My trip as told by two numbers

Never a standing body of water that doesn't reflect the sky

Photos and videos from Guilin, Yangshuo and the surrounding area: 1,697 (plus some from other people's cameras).

Xingping

Photos and videos from Yunnan (plus the final day in Yangshuo): 1,750

Black Dragon Pond


From Elephant Hill in Lijiang's Black Dragon Pond Park.

So, yeah, this will take me a couple months to sort through. Again, wait for the new blog to get published next month.

Lijiang at dusk:

Cigarettes are China's new opium

It is truly scary how widespread smoking is in this country. Just a few anecdotes from southwest China: on a minibus from Dali to Lijiang I was surrounded by smokers, forcing me to open my window and suck at the night air; here at an Internet bar I'm again surrounded by smoke, and while I can usually bear secondhand smoke without complaint, I feel nauseous right now; there are, believe it or not, ashtrays screwed knee-high on the stalls of the public bathrooms, as if some people really can't wait five minutes to pull up their pants before lighting up.

Seven years ago a BBC story, citing a British study, claimed "smoking could eventually kill a third of all young Chinese men if nothing is done to get them to drop the habit." That may be overstating it, but the sentence nails the essence of China's problem: lack of education. The "if nothing is done part" speaks to the authority's reluctance to tell its people smoking can cause disease, a fact that folks overwhelmingly deny. And why spend money to educate people? The tobacco industry's a cash cow, where, according to a 2007 Bloomberg article, generated "$31 billion, in taxes in 2005, according to a study at a Beijing University research center." As Bloomberg put it: "China, which consumes a third of the world's tobacco with a fifth of the population, must mediate between cutting health care costs and its financial stake in tobacco." In other words, cigarettes aren't going anywhere, even if it costs the country $5 billion per year in medical bills (31 > 5). (Although this article from Shanghai's Crazy English website claims it cost the country $32.5 billion in 2006.)

I don't know what's to be done. Usually I put my faith in the younger generation, but they're as addicted as anyone. This might be a pandemic with no relief in sight.

Who the hell is Thomas Kohnstamm?

Looks a bit like this guy, if you ask me.

Via TravelPod's forum, via happysheep's really good Finding Shangri-la blog.

Also see:

• The Perceptive Travel Blog
• World Hum interview
• Brave New Traveler

And while we're in Lijiang: TravelPod.

POSTSCRIPT: Unrelated to travel: scary. At least the Asian markets are okay -- I guess.

Settling into Lijiang

Guilin --> Yangshuo --> Kunming --> Dali --> Lijiang

On the bus from Dali to Lijiang last night I knew I had an even chance of waking up in the morning with either a fever or a reprieve, thus were the signals my body -- my poor, battered, persevering body, willing to shut down and kill itself in order to kill the pathogens -- were sending. After showering that night I realized the cause of my sudden discomfort -- there was a distinct moment while biking along a Dali highway that I felt my spleen shutting down, and later my stomach grew warm as when with virus -- might have been due to a spider bite. Hiking Chanshan Grand Canyon yesterday I walked into a web and thought I felt something. Later I reconsidered: maybe it was a mosquito. I lay shivering under sheets with the fear that I'd wake with Japanese encephalitis and might have to go to the hospital.

Instead, I woke up happy, feeling a mild delirium that comes to those whose fevers have just passed or, I surmise, who smoke opium or other mild hallucinogens.

The hotel, I should mention, is awesome -- two beds, shower, Western-style toilet (that is to say, an actual toilet), towels. I could have easily bargained the price down to 30 kuai/night (a little more than $4) but I settled at 40 kuai because the receptionist was sleepy and nice (I'm too nice for haggling). Here's the best part: the room hasn't been used for so long that there are mosquitoes dried and withered on the walls, dead from starvation. Another one was alive but too weak to fly. I killed it with my bare foot.

POSTSCRIPT: If you ever make it out to Lijiang -- and you should, because it's beautiful -- make sure you try the Naxi (not to be confused with Nazi) bread pancake. And the sugary Lijiang cakes. Absolutely delectable.