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Published: August 30th 2007
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Dali
Hotel in the Cangshan Mountain Well we made it up the mountain, but later than we planned. Unfortuneately the Higherland Inn was booked out and the earliest we could get a room was on Saturday. So we left the hippy commune by the lake (otherwise known as the Dragonfly Inn) to return to Dali Old Town. The lake was fine for a few days but the guesthouse had no facilities and there wasn't much to do and we needed to kill 2 days before we could finally climb our mountain!
Of course we found ourselves yet another filthy,dirty,cheap,empty hotel. That is our style after all-but 4Euro for a double room ensuite is pretty hard to say no to. And does it really matter that the room has never been cleaned since the hotel opened, or that there were giant cobwebs with over a dozen spiders dangling outside our door, or that some Chinese boy racers zoomed up and down the street at midnight? Not at all. It was filth on an extreme level, but it was cheap filth-you get what you pay for. I didn't complain and Mathias was positively in his element-he loves the grotty ones.
We spent the next few days wandering
Dali
Our Guesthouse the Highland Inn (Cangshan Mountain) about, politely declining soft drugs, eating Japanese food-the usual really. Finally on Saturday we were ready for the mountain. Hotel Filth kindly agreed to store our big rucksacks for free for the 2 days we planned to be away. (Apart from a chronic aversion to cleaning ,the staff were really very nice). I was nervous about losing almost all we had, but Mathias had faith in the staff and the rather depressive guard dog permanently chained up in reception. After over a week of dazzling sunshine, the weather had begun to turn. It had rained that night and was still drizzling in the morning but we had our trusty raincoats. Armed with our daypacks we tackled the hike up to the guesthouse head on. The hike itself took 2 hours, in which we climbed 600m to an altitude of 2600m. The rain made things slippy and messy and tough. Mathias bounded up the slope like a mountain elk. I followed him with all the grace of a mountain goat cursing and giving out . The rain continued to pour until at about 3pm 2 very wet and muddy souls arrived at the Higherland in, in search of shelter and a
Dali
Our Guesthouse the Highland Inn (Cangshan Mountain) shower.
We were shown to our cosy cabin, fed and watered. We both had a sense of acheivement having done the hike-especially in such nasty weather. But the weather wasn't finished yet, it continued to pour rain for the rest of the day, culminating in a quite spectacular thunderstorm in the evening. Needless to say there was no more hiking that day. Even though we were stuck inside, it was still an amazing feeling being up among the clouds. We chatted with the other guests, played Mikado (Japanese game with sticks-in my defense we were up a mountain) and played with the world's cutest dog who lived at the guesthouse. My one regret is that we didn't get a photo of her-Landmine was her name (something to do with her bark) and she had some identity issues. She thought she was a cat and would curl up on my lap to sleep. Mathias thinks we should have taken her with us-and he's right, We miss her!. Next morning we were awoken by the sound of heavy rain on the cabin roof. Not very promising. We decided to give it some time and went to breakfast. The rain eased off
Dali
Cangshan Mountain a little but the day was still very soggy so we thought the best idea would be to walk the 11km of the Cloud Path as far as the Cable Car and hike back down to Old Dali. Armed with some choc-chip cookies, large bottles of water and yesterdays still-wet clothes we set off on our hike.
Words alone cannot describe the Cloud Path, you have to see the photos. It was the single most amazing part of China we have seen so far. We walked a perfectly paved road through the clouds, passing countless little streams and waterfalls flowing down the mountain. When the clouds cleared the view was breathtaking . After 6km or so of very pleasant strolling we reached the Seven Maiden Pools-essentially a large waterfall with 7 pools attached. An entrepreneurial Chinese family have set up a noodle restaurant and "hotel"at the site, eager to cash in from the Westerners. I can't vouch for the noodles but Mathias bought a tasty foreigner priced corn on the cob to keep up the energy and we trundled along. 11km passed pretty quickly and soon we found ourselves at the site of the Cangshan Cablecar. Of course being
Dali
Cangshan Mountain view from seven maiden pool hard core hikers we had no intention of using the cablecar, rather we hoped to hike down the steps which supposedly ran underneath. I say supposedly as we couldn't find the way.. Shameful perhaps but after 3 unsuccessful attempts climbing down slippery steep stone steps (and clambering back up them) we consistently met a dead end. The employees of the cable car kindly pointed downwards to us in an attempt at showing us the way, but short of whitewater rafting on the flotsam of the big stream there was no way we were getting down. At this stage it was 7pm and cookies can only do so much. The only thing left for us to do was to walk back the full 11km to the guesthouse for one more night up the mountain.
Darkness was approaching but Mathias had his good old russian torch, and we had some fireflies guiding the way. When we reached the Chinese entrepreneurs on our way back they offered to put us up in their "hotel" for 6euro. We declined this kind offer, check out the photo if you want to see why. They also offered to take us the remaining 6km back to
Dali
Cangshan Mountain cloud path the Higherland Inn in their motorised rikshaw for 10euro. No zank you! It was 9pm when 2 hungry and tired backpackers returned to the Higherland Inn. Thankfully they had a room free and made us some sandwiches. But that was a walk and a half-hard core! The next morning we took some other steps down all the way to the bottom of the mountain (It was still too wet and unsafe to hike). We were welcomed back to Hotel Filth who had kept good care of our precious rucksacks and they offered us our old room, untouched by human hand since our last stay.There may have been some extra spiders though, I couldn't say for sure. We had barely a stitch of clean clothes to our name so the staff offered to do our laundry for a nominal fee. I've just realised we don't even know the hotel's real name, but I quite like Hotel Filth.
Next item on the itenary is a bus trip to the historical city of Lijiang (It's a World Heritage Site if you don't mind). It will be our stepping stone for the next big hike-Tiger Leaping Gorge!
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