Arrived in Dali today, after a wonderful bus ride. I paid for the Yunnan Express bus (Y119) and the bus was clean, did not make extra stops, no smoking, great! There's a great expressway connecting the two cities; it took 4+ hours. I got off the bus and took #2 line to #4 line and rode into Dali Old Town. I was planning to stay at Jim's Tibetan Guesthouse, but the rooms turned out to be a rip off. I took a room across the street at a different guesthouse (Y60 per night). Too bad it's pouring rain in Yunnan right [View Full Entry]

---

---

I took a flight from Jiuzhaigou to Kunming. M and I parted at the airport. The best Y900 spent ever. Saved me a 10 hour bus ride and who knows how long train ride. I'm in Kunming, Yunnan now! I visited Shilin ("Rock Forest") in Kunming today. This area is 2 hours away from Kunming and I took the organized car from the hotel (Y70 round trip). The entrance to Shilin is Y140 (Y100 with your expired Bruin ID)! Shilin is a karst rock forest that was under ocean 270 million years ago and water made these formations. It's quite interesting. [View Full Entry]

---

---

M and I headed to Huanglong the next morning via Chuanzhusi on bus. I was exhausted and slept the entire way. We got to the little town of Chuanzhusi, 40 km from Huanglong park. We picked a hotel (Gold Dragon Hotel, Y300) and negotiated a ride to the park. M's Chinese is 10 times better than mine and he got to do all the talking and negotiating. :) We got a round trip ride there for Y150. Huanglong is at 4000+ meters elevation and I was concerned about the altitude. I got a headache while I was there, but overall was [View Full Entry]

---

---

I spent two days exploring Jiuzhaigou park. One day solo, one day with my friend M. The first morning, the taxi driver who drove me to the hotel I stayed at showed up at the hotel at 7:00 am to take me to the park entrance. I had casually mentioned that I planned to go to the park at 7:00 am, but didn't ask for him to take me. As I got out of the cab that morning, he asked when I was going to go back to the hotel. I thought this was a bit odd of a question, considering [View Full Entry]

---

---

I arrived Jiuzhaigou from Songpan after a 3 hour pretty painless ride. I had a hotel booked, but at last minute the hotel/hostel backed out and I showed up to look for a three night stay. A lot of the hotels were fully booked or looked a little suspicious. There are a zillion hotels in Jiuzhaigou. I ended up at Jin Long Harbor for 800 rmb a night, which is a complete rip-off in hindsight. The hotel claims to be a 3* hotel, but it should be like 2.5*. Oh well. It worked out fine and I'm alive. I stayed in [View Full Entry]

---

---

I got to Songpan after another 5 hours bus ride. The ride was life threatening beautiful - and by that I mean I thought I was about to die. The drive from Wenchuan to Songpan goes through a series of mountains and the road is narrow, very winding, and there are a lot of speeding busses and trucks, and crossing animals. The views were quite stunning but one aggressive turn would mean that the bus would surely flip and fall thousands of meters down. There were lakes, rivers, multi-colored mountains, etc. My fellow bus passengers were terrible - eating apples and [View Full Entry]

---

---

Five of us The group all wanted to disperse the day after we got to Miyaluo so we all tried to figure out how to get to our next destination. Miyaluo is a tiny town, so transportation is a bit hard. Shenzhen guy wanted to go up North to the First Bend of the Yellow River and then to the grasslands bording Sichuan and Gansu (Ruoergai). This was somewhat on my way to Jiuzhaiguo, so I thought I would be tagalong for the first part of his trip. Then the other four (Chongqing, Sichuan girl and Old Shanghai) said they wanted [View Full Entry]

---

---

It's been an interesting two days. I'm in Wenchuan at an internet cafe ($0.30 per hour!!!) waiting for my bus to Songpan. So I headed to Miyaluo on Wednesday morning. Miyaluo is a small town that a driver at the Sim's recommended to me. He said that the fall foliage there is incomparable to anywhere and that the leaves were already turning colors. The travel agent at Sim's organized a bus ticket for me, recommended a hotel, etc. Also, Miyaluo is North of Chengdu, somewhat on the way to Jiuzhaigou and I'd have to transfer busses. Miyaluo was not included in [View Full Entry]

---

---

I'm in Chengdu right now (finally). I lost a day of sightseeing because there was a typhoon in Shanghai and my plane was delayed over 9 hours! I had a 10:50 am flight out of Pudong airport and because of the storm, the plane we were supposed to take landed in Shanghai's other airport. It took them (China Eastern Airlines) 8 hours to organize getting all the passengers to Hongqiao Airport. The plane departed at 8:00 pm. So frustrating. I got to Chengdu 10 hours late. I picked an LP recommended guesthouse - Sim's Cozy Guesthouse. The rooms are clean; I [View Full Entry]

---

---

I really wanted to check this exhibit out, but a bit lazy to go out there. This photographer spent 15 years to put together these photos. Check it out! [View Full Entry]

---

---