The city of Lijiang in Yunnan, China was reborn out of a 6.6M earthquake that devastated the city in 1996. When we visited the city in 2009, we had witnessed the rebuilding of a city that was perhaps more than ever oriented towards its original past and its future in tourism than to the reconstruction of its immediate past. Nonetheless, it was a visit that was well worth the panoramic breath and scale of the Yunnan landscape. Side visits to the villages and rapeseed fields, the farms and Naxi ancestral homes in the outskirts of Lijiang, the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the national parks in Liming and the Thousand Turtle Mountain, the upper reaches of the Three Parallel Rivers, protected areas, and nearby Dali, formed the backdrop of this fascinating visit to the region.

 

(Nikon D40, 2009)