Advertisement
Published: June 23rd 2009
Edit Blog Post
The 39 hour train trip...
Kim, Brad and I finally tucked into our hard sleeper beds at 3am ish! So we finally left Jingdezhen and caught our train to Kunming on the Wednesday night. Although I'm travelling pretty light (a 35litre normal rucksack), Brad and Kim had all the stuff they were bringing home wuith them so we had A LOT to carry betwwen the 3 of us!
Our friends Xiao ni and Shen jie dropped us at the station at 2am and lets just say, the process of getting onto the train was an interesting one considering we only had hard seat tickets! Pushing our way through to the PACKED hard seat carriage we were in, I had my usual mini quarrel with the guy sitting in our seat who didnt want to move very willingly, but I've experienced much worse!
Anyway, as Kim & Brad guarded our belongings, I went and spoke to the attendants at their counter and tried to get us some sleeper tickets, as the thought of staying in the packed out hard seat area for 39 hours was not something we really wanted to do. Luckily there was no problem and before we knew it we were dragging our bags (all 9 of them-yes really!Though 2 were full of food) from one end
of the train to the other until we hit the last one where the staff had their sleeping quarters.
We honestly never imagined that we could be so lucky on this trip. For the 39 hour train ride, we were only ever joined for one afternoon by one lady in our compartment and about half a dozen people in the whole of our carriage. There was little to distract except the views of the Chinese countryside and the strange looks from the train staff as we munched our way through 3meals worth of tuna & bean pasta salad and Kim's no-bake cookies that resembled small faeces, but thankfully smelt and tasted nothing like them!
In Kunming, we made our way to the Cloudland Youth Hostel where we checked into our 4bed dorm and had a well needed warm shower! There we wandered around the city looking for some dinner and unfortunately found that the Muslim area seemed to be under construction and some of the places recommended to us seem to have relocated or shut down-I guess thats how China is these days with so much change happening in so quickly..
Overall, Kunming seems like
Dali
The amazing skies... a nice & relaxed city as first impressions go.
The next morning we got up and headed to the bus station where we had booked tickets for a 5 hour journey North to Dali. Unfortunately, this "short" journey ended up being nearer 9 hours as we kept making stupid stops along the way and then got caught in some serious traffic. Slightly frustrating as there seemed to be nothing that was blocking the main road. no accidents. no roadworks...just annoying!
Arriving much later than planned, we had to then get a bus to Dali old town and then find our hostel..so it was a bit of a frustrating day to say the least.
After checking into the Jade Emu Guesthouse we went for a wander up to the famous 3 pagoda area and decided to go back early in the morning as it was about to close. Hopping into a rickshaw taxi, we befriended our driver 'John Wayne" who took us to Caicun pier on lake Erhai just as the sun was about to set. I really havent seen skies this clear and beautiful for a long time. Maybe living in Jingdezhen and the city has got
Dali
Erhai Hu me used to the grey and foggy sky...but really, it was so beautiful, even the photos cant capture it properly.
So after our trip to the lake, we had a wander around Dali old town and then settled at Jims Tibetan Cafe where we scoffed ourselves with delicious Tibetan yak meat and vegetable dishes, washed down with some very potent homemade alcohol!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0504s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb