We arrived in Lijiang pretty late. It was raining and we had no idea where the concert of the three or four announced bands should take place, the only thing we knew was that it should be somewhere in the Old Town and the venue’s name is Mammamia. We were surprised that no one knew a location like that in Lijiang, just outside of the city in nearby towns there would be two pizza restaurants with that name. Already a little bit frustrated and annoyed of the masses of tourists in the Old Town (yeah, as you guessed it now, Lijiang is another of these nice little tourist cities) we found an old hippie who settled down here who knew about this concert and was able to organise us someone who wrote down the directions to that place for a taxi driver. It really was, different than announced on the poster, not in Lijiang but in Shuo He, another town about 10km from Lijiang. The taxi to there costs less than 2€ and we finally made it there in time. We were surprised, the place where the concert was going to be held really was an ordinary (and even upscale) pizza restaurant with a terrace to the street what today was the stage. And there were not four or five bands this evening, just one. In Yangshuo we got to know a guy from Quebec and his girlfriend from Kunming who should play there this evening, too, but the guys girlfriend (who was there) told us that her boyfriend drank a little bit too much the day before and screwed up to come here and that his gig is cancelled. The only band that was left now was “Smegma Riot”, an italian expat band from Kunming, but they made a great show. The whole band was dressed in bathing suits and really gave all, even if the sound quality was not that perfect, it was just great and somehow hilarious to see. In the 50 people audience were a handful foreigners and otherwise chinese people who really didn’t look like if they would listen to punk music. They mostly were standing around in a half circle around the stage and probably were not really believing what these strange foreigners are performing in the middle of street. Men in bathing sutis, going totally crazy, rolling on each other on the ground, flashing their ass, jumping around producing a not understandable music in a worse quality. We loved it! It was something so different to equvalent concerts at home, just funny and hilarious to see! Unfortunately the police heard about the concert (what was not hard – it was in the middle of the city centre and really very load) and showed up after one hour and told the owner of the place that this song will be the last song – too bad. But after the concert we went with the band and some other people to a local pub where the party was going on. Bella Ciao accapalla for half an hour, a couple of beers and relaxed and interesting people. A great evening! Unfortunately it ended not so nice because when we went back to Lijiang the taxi driver just brought us to the Old Town where it’s extremely hard to find anything if you’ve just been in the town for maybe two hours. The narrow streets and ways somehow all look the same and it really is a Labyrinth. Good luck Jessy and Lyes took care of us two drunken and stoned people and picked us up in the main square at maybe 3 o’clock in the morning. But the show was not over yet, together with them we went to another small snack shop and joined the group they were drinking with for a few more beers.
The next day began (and ended) slowly with two or three breakfasts and coffees and slow walking around the ancient town. We bought our sleeper bus tickets for the next day to Jinghong (close to the Lao border) and made not so much more. I was not really feeling well either so I decided to stay in the room during the evening to chill out a little bit and to keep this blog more or less up to date . Annika went to a strange hotpot restaurant with the others, the speciality in this restaurant was some special meat that hang around somewhere for days and should be especially delicious. But anyway, she got lily blossoms what was good, as she reported to me

Dieser Eintrag wurde am Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2009 um 17:23 erstellt und ist abgelegt unter China, General. Mit dem RSS 2.0 Feed kannst du den Antworten zu diesem Artikel folgen. Du kannst eine Antwort hinterlassen, oder einen Trackback von deiner eigenen Seite senden.