Hi All,
A trip of fear. We decided to take the 5hr bus trip to Dali. The usual confusion at the bus station with no one seeming to know which bus to board. The time was the key and eventually we found it and got going. Unfortunately the roads in the area were chaos with no apparent road rules so it was a very frightening journey and we had front seat views. Luckily there was so much chaos that the driver averaged just over 25 km/h for the 140km journey so no high speed collisions were likely.
Things got even more crazy near Dali. There was a traffic jam and traffic was banked up. What to do? the road was one lane each way so the obvious solution to the Chinese was to overtake. This led to having 3 lanes on our lane and we had vehicles overtaking either side of the bus. Bizzzzzzzare.
It wasn't all bad and I did open my eyes and looked out long enough to notice that the women in each town had their own style of hats. That is each town had a specific hat type and was worn by most of the women that I could see along the way.
I got south american flashbacks when we didn't stop for the whole journey and there was no toilet on the bus. Not happy by the time we got off the bus. We got dumped at the eastern side of town and it wasn't clear exactly where the old town was located. The driver just pointed in a direction and then the bus was gone. It took a couple of attempts before we found the east gate of old Dali. It was a 1.5km walk to the hostel and it wasn't overly impressive as we passed from one side to the other. The town is small at about 1km square but has a nice wall around one side.
We specifically chose the hostel as it was part Australian owned. Jade emu and another nearby Jade roo. We arrived at the hostel and found that they had lost our booking. Dave the owner sorted it out and also our bus ticket for getting to Kunming in a day. I then noticed Vegemite sitting on the bar. A great internal cheer from both Vanessa and myself and then we ordered 4 slices of toast and butter and enjoyed the first Vegemite in ages.
We went for a walk into town and had tea at Cafe de Jack with a random American on holidays from his job in Russia.
Dali is known for its laid back lifestyle and it wasnt long before a sweet old chinese lady offered me 'ganja'. I laughed and told her that I didn't have enough brain cells left to have the luxury of smoking dope. I got another offer the next day from the same old lady. Very considerate.
Next day.
We walked to the 3 pagoda temples and took a look from the outside. We just didn't need to see another temple but the shapes were nice. Our wanders took us into an old area along the walls with cobbled streets. The area felt a little dodgy and we were glad to be back on the main road. The area had a lot of stone cutting equipment.
It was lunch so we headed back to Jacks for a very filling meal of cashew nut chicken and vegetables. We are getting pretty good with chopsticks now and only drop one or two things per meal instead of half the plate . Very nice meal.
The main street of Dali was absolutely packed with Chinese tourists and we just spent the afternoon wandering around before climbing the wall for more people watching. Highlights were the lady making beautiful toffee shapes like dragons and peacocks, the pampered Ram and carriage that you so extremely popular with both children and their parents and the colourful traditional dresses and headwear for the region.
We headed back to the hostel for tea and a disappointing hamburger. Not very chinese and we were punished for it.
Next day.
Bus to Kunming. I was not looking forward to the trip but it turned out to be quite good. The bus was quiet the roads were not chaotic and it stopped after about 2hrs for a break. It wasn't long after we started that a flute was pulled out and some of the chinese started singing along to the music. Very entertaining. The villages were also interesting as they had painting on the walls that became a dinosaur theme when we entered the dinosaur valley region. It didn't take long and we were in dirty uninviting Kunming. We quickly realised that it was going to be quite difficult to catch a bus to the airport so just grabbed a taxi. It was a good move and we had anticipated the possibility before leaving Dali and had a piece of paper with dali airport written by one of the staff in chinese. The trip only cost about 35 yuan (AUD6）and was hassle free.
Things went so smoothly that we arrived at the airport with 5hrs to spare. I spent some time learning how to use a computer program while Vanessa watched a movie (District 9)on the multimedia player and in no time we were on the flight heading to Guilin.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
