Blogs from Dali, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 14

Well 8 hours on a hard seat train and no one to blame but ourselves.. Why are we always tempted by the cheap option, never mind that it took 3 hours longer than the express bus? This time we were herded into a hard sleeper carriage converted for the day trip. Even sitting on a pillow my bum was in agony (very Princess and the Pea I know) and our backrest was unpadded metal. Mind you Mathias survived it in fine fettle. We were also seated beside a quartet of card playing Chinese men, they barely took a breather during the 8 hour journey. They were very friendly, helping us stow our bags and sharing their food with us-so it wasn't all bad! So here we are in Dali Old Town (Mathias likes to sing this ... read more

Yesterday did not yield anything much exciting as it was raining again. We got moved into our new place just a few meters down from MCA. It was a dingy hotel that was so desperate for patrons that they let us have the room for 40rmb (that would be ~$2.30CDN...) - so how could we say no? It had hot water and beds, so we really didn't complain. After getting checked in etc, we started walking down towards Er Hui Lake (I think that is what it's called at least). It is the lake that Dali sits on, in the middle of the mountain valley. After walking through road construction for about 1km, Hanmu got a van cab to give us a ride down to the water. We really didn't know how far the water actually ... read more

Dajia Hao! (Gegroet allen) Vanochtend werden we weer wakker in ons guesthouse in Dali. In Dali hebben we lekker ontbeten en daarna een beetje rondgezwalkt in het stadje op zoek naar souvenirs. Om 17:00 werden we weer terug verwacht in het guesthouse omdat we weggebracht zouden worden naar ons nieuwe slaapadres. Dit keer zouden we niet slapen in een hotel of guesthouse, maar bij mensen thuis! Een zogenaamde "homestay". We wisten totaal niet wat we moesten verwachten van deze homestay. Waar zouden we terecht komen? Misschien wel in de hu-tong (sloppenwijk), in een vies klein huisje waar we op de grond moeten slapen tussen de etensresten en kakkerlakken. Of op een boerderijtje, waar we 's ochtends om 5 uur moeten opstaan om de koeien te melken en rijst te plukken. Uiteindelijk belandden we in een klein ... read more

Another day trip by car from Dali concentrated on the Bai minority culture. Our first stop was at the Folklore Centre in the Bai village of Xizhou (admission 50 yuan). This building had a double courtyard plan, surrounded by wooden balconies on the second floor and in a large room beyond the second courtyard they demonstrated local costume, songs, dance etc in a presentation of the Three Tea Ceremony. The dialogue was only in Mandarin but the show was very visual and enjoyable, culminating in the sequential tasting of three teas - the first was bitter, the second very sweet with honey added and the third one was just right - with some honey and cinnamon. Leaving this area we found a quiet street on the far side of the village with many traditional Bai ... read more

Dali is a very short flight from Kunming, only about 45 minutes in the air. On arrival at Dali airport all went smoothly until we found the taxi rank, in chaos, paralyzing the five taxis that were there. The problem was that two couples wanted to share one taxi into the city. This incensed the next taxi driver in line and he drove his cab forward to block the exit for all cabs. The shouting began between the passengers and the drivers, all in Chinese. One of the passengers then marched in front of the blocking taxi and blocked it, explaining to us in English, that she was sorry but she had all day to wait for the drivers to see reason. No one seemed interested in the fact that we were waiting for a taxi, ... read more