Raining, cats, and dogs

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We caught a bus to Xianguan, aka New Dali, then attempted to change there to get to Old Dali. Unfortunately no-one seemed to know of the bus number mentioned in our guidebooks, but we ended up on a different bus going in the right direction. In Old Dali there was similar confusion, as none of the street names we saw tallied with the meagre map we had. We eventually found the cable-car that we knew would lead to our guesthouse - unfortunately it was in a park, which we also had to pay to enter, leading to expenditure equivalent to 1.5 days in the guesthouse before we'd even reached it.

By the time we reached the top, it was chilly and pissing down. The "couple of minutes" walk as per the RG turned out to mean a 15 minute uphill slog during which we were menaced by several dogs that turned out to belong to the inn - fortunately they bore no grudge towards us, despite me lobbing a couple of stones at them.

The guesthouse wasn't quite the cosy mountain retreat I'd imagined - it had basic unheated rooms, shared bathrooms whose overflowing bins of shit-smeared bog roll weren't emptied the entire time we were there, and unclean showers. There was nothing to do but hike, and that would have been very unpleasant because the rain was so heavy. Of equal concern was the fact that they couldn't do any laundry because of the weather - and with me down to zero clean clothes.

We spent the time reading, writing, or watching "Batman Begins". We were kept company by a cute cat and another creature that couldn't decide if it was a dog or actually a bat or cat. The cuteness stopped when they started doing what appeared to be 69ing.

After 2.5 days of constant rain, we decided that being on the mountain was less than ideal so descended to the town. The cable car wasn't running because of the weather so we walked - a treacherous, dirty, and wet hike down.

The town appeared to be fairly laid-back, despite being full of souvenir shops and Chinese tourists, but it was difficult to enjoy it with the constant rain. We crossed our fingers that heading north might bring a break in the weather, and booked tickets for Lijiang.

Dull but possibly useful info
Getting there: Take a bus from Kunming to Xinguan (many through the day - we took the 9AM), costing 74 yuan and taking about 5.5 hours, then take a bus to Dali (many through the day - take the number 4 or number 8), costing 1.5 yuan and taking about 25 minutes. Note that Xinguan is often referred to as Dali.
Stayed at: Higherland Inn. Cost 60 yuan for a double. Would not stay here again.
Old Dali Guesthouse No. 5. Cost 100 yuan for a double. Included free Internet and free buffet breakfast. Would stay here again.

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Photos

Er Hai lake
As seen from the cable car

Cute cat and dog sleeping together at the Higherland Inn
During a break in some inter-species 69ing

Comments

[justin]

back in my day...
I visited Dali with my parents about 20 years ago. Memories are fairly pleasant. However, I was also rather young and naive. It was funny how my mum kept on commenting on how "green" the area was at the time as a few weeks later, after we returned to Hong Kong, my mum read in a newspaper that there had been a government crackdown with the army in Dali burning farms down, as the local farms had become rather too enterprising and were growing marijuana instead of their regular crops. Although I’m reasonably convinced that she didn't recognise the plants…