China Day 8 - 玉龙雪山风景区 (丽江)

24 May - Today is the highlight of the trip, going up to the highest point we ever reached in our entire life, 玉龙雪山观景台 at 4506m. As I still have not recovered from my bout of cough, I gave up climbing to another higher platform at 4608m. To start the day, we woke up super early at 5am just to catch the 日照金山 view. Before that, we listened in to a safety briefing on 高反 as the cable car that is going to bring all of us up will be ascending 1000m in 10mins. Pretty much a high risk event that most people will experience some sort of discomfort. To lower the risk, they recommended some 中药 mixture that will help elevate the oxygen content in the blood so that the risk of 高反 is lowered. Well, health is more important, so we just buy the mixture and drink, especially we just saw a news that a Malaysia tourist died after visiting 玉龙雪山 a few weeks before this trip. To prepare for ascending 玉龙雪山, a common advice widely circulated is not to wash your hair 1 day before and after as washing hair might increase blood circulation and make the 高反 worse.

日照金山 - Too bad the mountain top is hidden behind the clouds

Another view of 玉龙雪山, which is still hidden behind the clouds

白水台 which is not very white

玉液湖

蓝月谷

玉龙雪山观景台 @ 4506m

After 1 hour on top of the mountain, I began to feel the effect of 高反 (headache) and quickly descend down the mountain. Next up, we catch the Lijiang Impression that is directed by 张艺谋.

Hmm. truthfully speaking, the Lijiang Impression is not very impressive to me