having biked the area extensively and always on the lookout for traffic free areas, I can recommend the following:
Diqin (I assume you mean Shangri-la): head out east on the East Ring road, over Baishuitai, Haba and the east end of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Go to the west end. Do the trek back to the east. Hop in a ferry or take the new bridge over to Daju. Get transport or hike or ride towards Lijiang on this old road. It has a couple inevitable touristy spots, though. From Lijiang, if you are walking, there's a beautiful hike over Shigu (at the first bend of the Yangtze) on an old horse trail towards Jianchuan. If you can't hike, you're stuck to a fairly tourist-laden road to Jianchuan.
At Jianchuan head out to Shaxi, do Shibaoshan etc. Continue down the valley over Yangbi, or head out to Yunlong if that's not too far out of your way, go into Dali. From Dali take the old road over Chuxiong to Kunming.
Of course, if you can meander more, I suggest you approach Kunming from the north.
China's first provincial 'tourism police' approved for Yunnan
Posted byCan I ask them whether I really have to pay for putting my bike on the bus? How do I call them?
Getting Away: Vietnam's Ha Long Bay
Posted byCheck out Quan Lan island too - four hours away by boat from Ha Long City (160 000 VND five years ago).
There's no electricity on the island - they run a generator from 6-8 pm and so most tourists stay away. There are a few small hotels and restaurants, though, and you have most of the island for yourself: beaches, mangroves and dunes. But the best of it all is that, for a fraction of the price of a junk cruise, you tour through the exact same rock formations of Ha Long Bay.
There's also a ferry to and from Cam Pha.
Pictures:
www.crazyguyonabike.com/[...]
Wanda opens 15 billion yuan Yunnan resort
Posted byFinally, some much-needed tourism money for Yunnan!
Boy raised by Kunming hospital staff turns five
Posted byWhat a perfect China story. Beautiful yet sad, involving money, law and probably stupidity, and with very contradictory characters. And in the middle of it, innocence.
Interview: Kunming Craft Beer Society founder Darryl Snow
Posted byI beg to differ that Germany is home to lots of variety. Indeed the purity law was more or less accepted as a way to get Bavaria to join the German Union, favouring their beers (uniquely wheat and pilsner beer) over the much more varied, northern beers. As a result, the variety completely disappeared and the purity law really is a load of hogwash.
The implied purity is not guaranteed because you only use barley, hops, water and yeast - you can still get yeast infections in your beer.
So really it was a political decision which erased Germany's beer variety and gave neighbours like Belgium the competitive edge.
What Germany _does_ have, however, is some of the best Pilsner and wheat beers in the world. But those are hard to come by outside of Germany (think Jever and Rothaus).