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Published: September 14th 2006
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at first i have to admit something. something absolutely cruel happened to me, or rather i did it. there is no excuse for it and i don't know how this could happen. in the short time that is left of my journey i don't even have the possibility to make up my big mistake. it actually already happened to me in chengdu but up to now i didn't have the courage to meke this confession: i forgot "war and peace" in the hostel in chengdu. i was somehow distracted before i left because i met an austrian guy shortly before departure and then there was also this belgian girl who w had to catch the same train as me and we went to the train station together. i know, these are just explanations and as i said before there is no excuse for that. i just hope that someone will recognize this book as what it is and will treat it in the respectful way that it deserved. i wish this girl from us/kazakhstan, with whom i had this great discussion about russian literature would find it. she for sure would know what to do with it though she can't read
the german translation.
back to the travel: i left lijiang early in the morning with a small bus that went directly to dali a town further south that was supposed to be a nice place to spend some time there. it's indeed a very relaxing place. it's also very touristy but not in an artificial way. the first thing i did was going to eat something. i found quite a decent place and the food was good. also the place were i stayed (guesthouse no. 4) was nice. it had a large garden and the staff was friendly and could speak some english. i especially admored the showers, which had no shower heads. who needs this fancy stuff anyway? also the toilets were done very simple. there was just one chute running through all the cabins. frome time to time they would spill some water through the chute to wash away all the dirt. but only from time to time, so that i had the unique possibility to take a shit on my shit of the day before.
the afternoon i spent with running through the city. there is not really much to see in dali but you can
have a nice time by just strolling around. when i came back to the hostel i had a look at the trips they organised. the girl at the reception convinced me that i could do the horse-ride to some spring area. i don't really like horses, they're pretty stupid animals and are by the way to large so that they frighten me. but i thought that china is different in so many ways that maybe even the horses would be nice. another reason was that it was really cheap: 50 RMB, that's nothing, right?! at the same time i booked the sleeper bus to kunming for the next evening, then i again went to eat. this time i went into a tibetian place. the food was great and a met a couple (he british she from the phillipines, both between 50 and 60 i guess) that i had seen already in tuna's guesthouse at the end of the tiger leaping gorge. they (especially him) had travelled a lot and they could tell stories of places and experiences they made so that i dont't know how i ever again stay at home.
thus the next day in the morning i sat
on a horse. the horses were pretty small i guess. i don't know much about horses but i was not so frightened of these horses than i use to be. there was a chines couple and a spanish couple who joined me and finally there were the two guides (female) who walked and cared about the horses. the first hour or so, we just rid along the street. i thought that riding is a very stupid way to move from one place to the other. you never can sit still and in my case there was also this lack of control. when my horse felt like eating it just went to the next bush and started to eat. in the beginning i could do nothing about that. the only positive thing was that i had a warm butt all the time. then we started to ride into a forest and up a mountain. that was were i became pretty impressed about the skills of these horses. we rid along really small pathes, a lot of stones and sometimes it became very steep. all that was no problem for the horses. well, sometimes i was afraid that my horse would fall
because ot slipped away sometimes but in fact it never did. when we arrived up there, there wasn't much to see. it was very foggy and soon it started to rain. there was a water fall and we saw some monkeys, all chained to a house. when we rid down i became even more respectful towards these horses, since now it was very slippery and they brought all of us back safely. was an interisting trip i must say, though i would have preferred to walk it myself.
it was stuill raining when we came back and so i spent the afternoon in cafe de jack, a really great place to relax. they played very nice melancholic music there and i was drinking some tea, writing, reading and from time to ttime i would eat something. at some point the waitress asked me to help her learn english. she just wanted to know how to pronounce some words. it was nice though to be able to be of use.
back at the hostel to pick up the bus ticket i found out that i would be together with a begian guy on the bus. a guy brought us to the
bus station and shortly afterwards (at 9) we were on the way to kunming.
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Peter
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Hi Florina, wir wissen nicht ob du noch in China unterwegs bist oder schon am Heimweg. Wo können wir dich per Email erreichen? Michael hat dir auf deine UNi adresse eine Nachricht geschickt. LG, Peter, Michael.