I was looking forward to this day’s activities – Luguhu. This is the home to the famous Mosuo minority of China, the matriarichal society. Women are the heads of households, lineage is traced through women, women basically wear the pants. There’s also the curious and oft-misunderstood tradition of “visiting marriages” where men will climb in women’s bedrooms to play the role of husband for the evening and escape back before the sun rises.

More good mountain views. Sorry about the power lines.

We caught an early bus for the six hour bus ride. Ouch, six hours. Well, that time went by quickly. We arrived early and got good seats. I picked the very front to enjoy the big windshield. The driver showed up and barked something about how I was too tall to sit in the front. Well, I’ll be the judge of that. It was true, there was maybe 6-8 inches of space for my legs, but I just swung my legs over to the left on top of the backpacks and this worked just fine. We enjoyed great views and curious sights for the six hours. I was never bored. The road was often barely passable due to landslides and it was mostly all curves. We got great views of the back side of Jade Dragon Mountain and other peaks in the distance, villages perched high and low along the mountain slopes, up-close-n-personal views of village life complete with gutting pigs and old women toiling in the fields with traditional dress.

1) Landslide! 2) Hauling stuff on your back is a common sight. 3) So is this – kids are encouraged not to use the bathrooms.

Unfortunately, the rest of the trip was a bit of a letdown. The lake was huge, the views were great, but we didn’t see much of this culture. The entrance prices was about $11 and all we did was get driven to the opposite side of the lake, get a room, hike around a bit, and went to bed. Uh, what does the $11 cover? It was way more expensive than Leaping Tiger Gorge and not nearly as good. Those matriarchs ripped us off! Before, going to bed, we headed down to relax in the mellow restaurant/bar. There were only a handful of people down here and it felt more like the US and China (especially w/ the Nora Jones music playing). I spent some time writing in a journal (that became these blog entries) and looked forward to heading back to LiJiang tomorrow morning.

Mosuo women at the touristy lake, folks walking on the side of the road outside of the “park”. I thought those hats were pretty neat.

Shots of the beautiful lake. The lake sits on the border of the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.