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Published: August 6th 2007
Three Pagodas
On the first day in Dali I went to see the Three Pagodas with Mette. They are some of the most important buildings in Yunnan province.I Got High in Dali
Everyone who travels to Dali gets high in one way or another, it’s just what happens there. I suspect that a lot of people spend more time than they intended in Dali for just that reason. The thing is though that there are more ways to get high than by using the readily available stream of drugs on the street or by hanging out in one of the dozen or so stoner bars. I chose the more adventurous option for my trip: Cang Shan, the mountain sitting just behind the town.
First though, I owe you an overview of Dali. The old town of Dali is a square city some few kilometers on each side which is placed between a gigantic mountain range on the West and a massive lake (Er Hai Hu, or Ear Shaped Lake in English) on the East. Mette and I arrived in the early afternoon so lunch was definitely in order, something which is both easy to come by and hard to find with any decent level of quality. Dali is packed with westernised stores, cafes and bars. Despite the fact that the vast majority of tourists in the
Dali's Cafes
Foreigner street in Dali. town were Han Chinese, the most common fare to be found was pizza, followed closely by a legion of bannana pancakes. This may sound like a great thing for most people, and indeed I was looking forward to some western food after having gorged myself on Chinese dishes for the previous week and a half, however the prices can make even the biggest moneybags shudder. When I tried to buy a decent coffee I almost had a heart attack!
Do not be totally disheartened, you can find cheap and tasty food in Dali, you just have to look around for it, and when looking around for food involves walking past hundreds of cafes with food in them my resolve weakens faster than that of a fat man in front of a McDonalds (not suprising considering that I wasn’t far from being said man). Additionally, as you wander the streets you are constantly bombarded by offers such as the almost inaudible “Wanna smoke Ganja?” from little old ladies, or “Buy from me?” from just about everyone else. Getting off the street into a cafe is the easiest form of respite from the barrage of junk-sellers. To pass the time in
Bars in Dali
Old town Dali has some beautiful old buildings that are now westernised bars/cafes. Dali I was usually to be found in one of the overpriced and low quality cafes, pouring over several Chinese textbooks in an effort to become functional in this country. Nights were actually incredibly quiet because most of the westerners in town were either much older than I, or much higher and stuck in the dim dark recesses of a hippy bar.
However, as the title implies (it doesn’t really imply does it, it’s more of a definitive statement), I did get high in Dali.
One morning I awoke early. This was mostly deliberate, but also had something to do with Rich (a friend of mine that you will be hearing about in the next journal) coming into my dorm and disturbing my sleep and my groove. The aim for the day was to climb as far as I could up Cang Shan in order to set a new personal altitude record. The previous four or five days had been wonderfully warm, even up on the mountain, and the sun had been shining through pristine blue skies (on a side note, the skies in Dali are unbelievably beautiful. The blue is like no blue I have ever seen
in the sky, rich and vibrant yet faint and soft. It reminds me of one of my favourite Monet’s), perfect weather for climbing a mountain. I set out immediately after a hearty breakfast (noodle soup) wearing long pants and a T-shirt. I brought myself a small lunch in the form of two slices of garlic bread, two bottles of water and my camera.
I should have cottoned on to a few things when the guard at the cable-car station told me that it would be cold on the mountain that day and then gone back to get my jacet, but I didn’t. As soon as I was on the lift I realised my error: the mountain was shrouded in cloud! Oh well, I would just have to stop and turn back once it started getting too cold, I wasn’t aiming for the peak after all.
Now, the lift only goes so far, this story would be far too boring if I just rode a lift all the way up, and once at 2500m I had to start walking. Almost immediately I was out of breath, perhaps I did have a hangover. At 2600m I reached the Highland guesthouse
Pagoda and Mountain
You can see Cang Shan in the background. where I picked up a map and some information, the woman there assured me that the clouds would lift by early afternoon, a very much appreciated snippet of information. From the guesthouse upwards there would be no sign of civilisation, just me and the mountain. My aim was to reach a lake called the Horse Drinking Pond which was supposedly four hours walk away.
I’m no mountain climber, and I’m also very out of shape at the moment, so climbing the path turned out to be suprisingly difficult. Every five minutes I would have to stop and take a breather as the thin mountain air was having difficulties finding my bloodstream. The path climbed up the side of a gorge, winding it’s way around small peaks until eventually popping it’s head out on a ridgeline. This was where I realised just how cold it could be in the mountains, I was already higher than I’d ever been before and all around me I was surrounded by stangeness. Just hearing the wind through the trees caught me off guard: I had never heard such loud noises in a forrest, I almost convinced myself that a truck was bearing down on
The Palace Grounds at the Three Pagodas
This site was the religious captial of Chinese buddhism. me! The thin pine forrest around me looked exactly like what I imagined an alpine trek to encounter and the views from the ridge were almost ludicrously beautiful. Looking down an inconceivably steep mountain to the plain below, with Dali nestled serenly in the middle and the lake in the background, it was almost a dream. That sort of thing can’t actually exist in reality can it?
After an hour of climbing I saw something wrong. Or more precisely, I saw something new. Snow. This may not sound exciting for you, but for a North Queenslander who’s only previous encounter with snow was a slightly cold slush on the side of Mount Kosciuszko it was like being a kid in a candy store. The small lick of white, cold fluffiness sitting there next to the path was enough to make the journey totally worthwhile. I assumed that this would be the be all and end all of the snow as the mid-spring weather had all but melted the frosty coating of the mountain, oh how wrong I was. About five minutes later I was standing in the middle of a snow drift that totally covered the path for almost
Mette Tries to Get Lucky
Despite the fact that we maxed out on luck at the water splashing festival, Mette thought it would be a good idea to accrue some more. Everyone who visits the palace bashes the stones together, thus making the indentations. 20 meters, this was where I threw my first snow ball.
Further up, as it was starting to get really cold and I was about the enter the clouds, I ran into three other trekkers: two Irish and one English. They were all rugged up in thick jackets with the hoods up, hands firmly entrenched in pockets and still complaining about the cold. I’m sure they thought I was mad to only have a shirt on, but it wasn’t cold as long as I kept walking. The only problem with that was that to keep walking meant that I needed to stop and catch my breath every couple of minutes. A nasty catch 22. We decided to walk together as we were all heading in the same direction, and the company made the trek a little more enjoyable as we passed through some of the most amazing scenery. The path passed beside the remnants of a glacier, gigantic rocks which must have weighed several hundered tonnes each were scattered about as though god had been throwing them into the hillside. The path of the glacier flowed down the side of the mountain carving a rift right through the forrest,
therby presenting us with direct views across the mountain.
Higher and higher we walked, slowly gaining altitude. Eventually the snow started to thicken, in some places we were walking through meter thick snow that stretched as far as the eye could see, only the trees adding colour to the view. After perhaps two hours we emerged from the forrest into a barren land of small lichens and bushes with the occasional tree mocking the weather and clearly failing to make an impression. Thankfully the other guys had brought some snack foods, the Yak Jerky was a great pick-me-up, so we munched on sugar to keep ourselves warm as the cold winds blew around us. Once we reached the lake on the hill some 3700m above sea level, which mind you was almost totally invisible through the clounds, it was starting to look as though we were actually climbing a mountain more than hiking along a trail. It was still early so we decided to make an attempt of reaching the peak which was still an hours walk and 400 vertical meters away. The path snaked up the side of the mountian, sometimes without any vegetation or protection from the
wind. Snow was everywhere, I was totally in awe of my surroundings and loving every step (my legs weren’t loving it anywhere near as much as I).
Then Antony ran back at us yelling “Stop, don’t go there yet!” We had just walked down the side of a ravine through the thickest snow yet, the cliff on our right went out of sight in one white streak and we were struggling to keep on our feet. The wind was howling like a semi-trailer full of agitated Jerry Springer contestants and the faintest touches of rain were falling (being propelled sideways would be a more apt description). Antony blithely suggested that we “Yak up” and be prepared for the finally cold struggle to the peak, his description of what lay around the corner cannot be repeated in polite speech. Antony also realised at this point that he had a spare rain coat in his pack which I very thankfully accepted as a means of keeping the wind and rain off, without which I would never have made it around that corner. When we were finally ready to hit the mountain we all set off at a fast trot.
Rounding
the corner I was faced with nothing. The peak lay to our right, totally exposed to the elements, and in front of us lay a vast emptiness leading all the way to Tibet. The freezing Himalayan wind buffetted us head on, carrying with it stinging rain and ice, freezing us to the core. The only thing to do was to keep moving and find shelter wherever we could. Around the peak we moved, slowly spiralling our way to the top. In parts the path totally dissappeared in the snow, only the tracks of previous hikers leading us to our destination. Up and up we walked, every now and then we though we could see the peak throught the fog but then we would be bitterly dissappointed to find that the mountain continued beyond. Finally we found a small crag of rock which could protect us from the wind, we crouched there in a very Malcolm Douglas fashion and decided our future. Ahead the path totally dissappeared into a mess of rock and snow, behind us lay the dreaded walk back down. We couldn’t give up, despite our stinging faces, frozen hands and burning legs so we stepped out and headed
Big Bell
This bell was recast based on the design of the original. straight upwards.
Almost immediately a building appeared through the fog, it was the TV tower on the peak! We half ran, half sprinted to the door and entered the “warm” (the English guys thought it was warm enough to take off their jackets while I thought it no better than outside) room inside. There we found six Chinese tourists wering nice hats and fashionable clothes looking as though they hadn’t done any strenuous exercise in more than a week. How on Earth had they beaten us up? Why did we look as though we’d been through hell (the frozen over version thereof) while they looked like they were on a summer picknick? So there we all sat, around a heater eating snacks and drinking tea with Chinese tourists at 4091m. It was the highest place I had ever been, it was the biggest climb I had ever undertaken, it was one of the hardest things I had ever done, and there was no view. Bugger.
On the way down we followed the Chinese, they had climbed the mountain on the other side. Their path was shaded from the wind by generous vegetation and due to higher traffic the
path was easier to follow. The four of us descended extremely quickly and found ourselves below the clouds after only 40 minutes. An hour later we had descended to a road where the Chinese had parked a couple of four wheel drives. Cheaters. From there we faced a couple of hours descent along what the map labelled as “Steep and Dangerous” paths. This was interpreted as “Fun to run down” and we headed off at a half run down 45 degree slopes. Oh how good it felt to head down the mountian! We were coming down the ridgeline immediately across from the one which we had ascended and this gave us the opportunity to see just how steep and snow covered it really was. Long lines of snow like rivers cascaded down the steep hillside making the mountain look surrealy beautiful. On our side of the mountain we passed a mountain-top temple which had potentially the best view across the plain in the whole area, yet again amazing us with it’s existance.
After three hours of descent our knees were in bad shape as we finally reached the chairlift. We were just in time for the last lift down
and we casually stolled up to the entrance feeling on top of the world. James tried to skip the ticket fare and just jumped onto the lift, much to the annoyance of the guards who quickly got him off. For some reason the Chinese can’t tell time, at least these guards couldn’t, and they would not let us ride the lift. Instead we were forced to walk down another 600m along some of the most difficult paths yet encountered. We didn’t take that well and I imagine that our curses were heard by more people than the guards. However, another hour of walking was not going to make too much difference.
So, after ten hours of walking, four and half of which were uphill, and around 40km hiked, I found my room and nearly collapsed. My joints and muscles were exhausted, my body was a mess, but I had climbed to 4091m. I was still on top of the world, I had gotten really high in Dali.
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Alex
non-member comment
Wow, congrats on conquering your first mountain, it sounds like it was an excellent adventure. Let's see more photos of the city and its locals (preferably the female ones).