Blogs from Dali, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 7

Wu Wei Si is a Buddhist monastery nestled in the picturesque Cangshan mountains, not too far from Dali Old City. I had heard about this place through word of mouth and figured it would be different way of experiencing some Chinese and Buddhist traditional culture. The monastery itself dates back about 1200 years. Mahayana Buddhism is the form practiced here. This form of Buddhism differs slightly from Theravada Buddhism in that it is believed that nirvana (a transcendent state in which one breaks free from karma and life/death cycles, the final goal of Buddhism) can be achieved by anyone within a lifetime by putting mind and sometimes body towards the goal. Those that have reached enlightenment may delay nirvana to help others achieve this goal. I was to spend the next week training in the ancient ... read more

With a few weeks of holiday at my disposal I decided to return to Yunnan, the destination of my first travel blog 3 1/2 years ago. Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge were once again on the agenda. The plan was to make the mountaineous route into Sichuan, but the route is closed because of the snow. To avoid boring myself I've summarised this in to one blog, with just a few highlights and thoughts:- - Tiger Leaping Gorge is still gorgeous and remains the most beautiful and impressive place I've visited. Made all the nicer by not being overrun with Chinese Tour Groups (they take the bus along the lower road, missing the best bit). There are rumours the government are going to build a dam nearby and flood the area - a real ... read more

Having planned to hike up the mountain behind the town of Dali today we woke to high winds and pouring rain. Plans were changed, breakfasts were eaten, yummy Yunnan coffee was drunk and off we headed to Dali's landmark Three Pagodas Temple. With an overly expensive admission price of 120Y (the Forbidden City it just 40Y), the Three Pagodas Temple had to work hard to impress. Now the three pagodas themselves are very pretty, but far more impressive are the eleven temple buildings rising up the hill behind them. You can't see each building until you pass through the one before it, and as we didn't know how many temple buildings there were in total it started to feel like they would never end. Also, there was a thick smog of incense in each building so ... read more

Well, it has been a little while since we had time and good internet access. So I will try to catch up to the present. We're back at home with the boys, all safe and sound. Our second day in Dali, we rented bikes and had a nice day riding through little villages along Erhai lake. They were Bai minority villages that were comprised of farming land surrounding clusters of buildings. The streets and alleys were very narrow and fun to ride through. Between each little village, we would ride through the farm fields on gravel paths, sometimes getting a little lost. In one village, some kids were playing basketball and invited me in. I played one on one with their tallest guy. It was fun, but I wore out fast in the sun and heat- ... read more

Ni Hao, Yesterday we went to a town called Anning, about an hour out of Kunming. They have a lot of hot springs there, most of which are pretty lame, inside polls, but we went to one that was done right. It was a bath house with massages, combined with an outside pool area that had several pools of varying temperatures, colors, scents, and even some minnows in one. We tried the minnow pool for a few minutes, but it was a little disturbing to have them biting the skin from our feet, so we moved on after a lot of screaming and giggling, since it sort of tickled. Alex and Sam went with us, which made it more fun. We got a late start out of Kunming, so didn't get to the springs until late ... read more