Kuming, Lijiang, to Dali

The third stop of my China tour, from Kunming, Lijiang, to Dali. The day train was about nine hours to Dali. Along the way I was previed to some nice Yunnan province scenery. One guy in my berth was playing the harmonica, badly, for almost the entire trip so I made my way between two of the coaches and looked out the window. The train pulled into Dali at around five PM and the first thing I noticed was that this town had tuk-tuks! I had no map or address, all I knew was that I needed to get to the old city, which had much more to see and do. Of course nobody spoke English, the joys of traveling through China! I used my phrasebook to attempt communication with some young guy at a bus stop about which bus to take to get there and although I wasn't certain if he understood me completely, I boarded the bus he pointed out.

After about a half hour on the bus, and wondering if I was indeed heading the right way, I noticed an old gate nearby and got off. Walking through it I discovered some beautiful cobblestone roads and old Chinese style archatecture on either side. I realized, much to my relief, that this must be the place. I continued walking up and saw more and more people and then surprisingly, I saw someone I recognized. It was Al, whom I'd met in Kunming. He brought me to the place he was staying at, called the Jade Emu, which was like a home away from home, and one of the best hostels I've yet stayed at on this trip. I hung out there that evening. Even the computers had access to websites like facebook which in China are normally censored.

I went on a walk with Al the following fay along the bottom of the mountains near the Old City for a few hours. We then walked back into town and ate some super spicy soup and then took off again to visit the famed three pagodas. After checking them out we walked a while longer. When we returned to the hostel we were both sunburnt. It was only a little sunny but I'm guessing the elevation of the place (2000 m) did us in. I later got a haircut and straight razor shave in town which was great.

The next day I walked down to the giant lake on the outskirts of town. Erhai lake just seemed to get bigger as I approached. I took a boat trip to the other side of the lake, visiting some random temples, but more importantly got to see some great scenery. On the way back the boat stopped off at a fishing village and I saw loads of seafood for sale.

I went down for breakfast the next morning and was intending to hike across part of the Cangshan mountains, when I met a Swedish couple, Jakob and Elsa, who were also going to do the same, so we decided to go together. We took a cable car up to the midpoint of one of the mountains. Upon arriving we saw several small gorges with streams, a huge Chinese chess board, which is a Guiness World Record for size, some caged monkeys which pained me since I'd gotten used to seeing them in the wild. For the next few hours we walked along the stone path that hugged along the mountains. The walk itself was quite easy and very relaxing, we took a few detours along the way to see backpaths and mountain temples. After about six hours we were starving
and climbed a bunch of stairs to this place called the Higherland Hostel and got food. We took a chairlift back down which afforded some of the nicest views of the whole day and then returned to the old city as night fell.
My last day in Dali I went bouldering at Climb Dali. I initially wanted to do some rock climbing but unfortunately it seems to be low season now and needed at least another person to do this. So instead I took advantage of the indoor bouldering wall, which worked out well because it started raining. Later I just watched a couple of movies back at the hostel and chilled out.
Then I will take a flight to Shanghai for Shanghai Expo, looking forward to another great China tour!