Blogs from Dali, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 3

Hi All, We wanted to go out and about around the lake today on bicycles but unfortunately the weather was against us. With getting wet climbing the mountain yesterday we didn't really fancy getting wet again so we went for a walk around the town. Dali is very small, compared with other places we've been, so it's very easy to walk from one side of the town to the other. The centre of town is very touristy but on the outskirts of the town there are still old houses and a vegetable market for the locals is still going strong in the north east part of the town. I've really enjoyed our time here and I wish it could of been longer. Dali is a great place to come if you want to relax. Enjoy the ... read more

October 1st is China's National holiday for which the majority of the country gets an entire week off. During this week, an average of 2.75 million people travel to the province we are currently in, Yunnan. For that reason, we wanted to find a nice little place to avoid the crowds for at least a couple of days. SHAXI Shaxi Village was the perfect place to do it. It's an ancient, dusty, wooden town that still survives from the millenia old Tea and Horse Trail which connected China with India and the rest of the world. This quaint little town has recently received tourism funding from the government. You can see that many renovations are being completed and there are more plans in the works uncluding a new highway which will cut at least half an ... read more

Hi All, What a kerfuffell to get here. The sleeper coach from Shaoyang to Kunming, 17 hours, wasn't the most comfortable or the sweetest smelling ,a baby went to the toilet in the bin, nice! The driver of the coach was good though. I told him where we were going and he made sure we got to the correct bus station. We caught the bus from Kunming to Dali City all going good until we hit a traffic jam on the motorway. 3 1/2 we were stuck in this queue. The strange thing was that once the traffic moved there was no carnage, nothing. The journey was worth it though. A pretty little walled town which again was once a capital city, not of China, but of a kingdom that stretched into Burma. Today we went ... read more

I wake up and still full of the verve and vigour of a month's training with a bunch of 18 year old boys I decide to trek up the mountain Cangshan. I try and follow the incredibly simple map to the start of the route and luckily being me – get lost and end up taking a motorbike for a quid up to the hiking entrance. I've packed some bao dzur (steamed buns filled with pork purchased for 60p) and a snickers for lunch. I've started my day in preparation by having a banana and chocolate pancake and a coffee – yum. After the hiking entrance which costs 30RMB its a steep 45 mins – 1hour walk up stone steps until it levels out to flat path. The walk up isn't particulary inspiring as the mountain ... read more

Our final stop in Yunnan province was the city of Dali, another of China's ancient cities. What I most wanted to see was Erhai Lake, China's third largest. Other than that, it didn't seem to offer much that Lijiang and Shangri-La didn't already offer - it had an old (walled) city with shops and restuarants, etc. In order to get to Dali, it was an 8-hour bus ride from Shangri-La. We left early on August 1st to make the trek. We thought that for such a long bus ride they'd give us a nice bus but we thought wrong. Thankfully our travel agent in Shangri-La (who was the same friendly Tibetan who organized our tour) got our tickets early and we were assigned the front two seats on the bus. Of course, this being China, some ... read more