Dali Province to Lijiang, Yunan, China 3nd June

Asia » China
June 3rd 2008

Published: June 16th 2008

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Krunch

Dali - 3 pagodas 02.06.08

So the prices in China can be as cheap or as expensive as you want them to be. For future reference the exchange rate is 1 AUD = 6.158RMB at least when i swapped.

So today I got up at about 9am. Got my stuff ready to check out. We (me, Mikk, Jian and Kathy) booked some horses up to Cangshan mountain for 60RMB (less than $10 AUD for there and back - 1 hour+ each way).
Had some dumplings for breakfast.

Riding the horses up the mountains was something else. The horses in China are more like mules ( a cross between a horse and a donkey). They also have bells around there necks (therefore sound like a cow or something when they walk) and don't pay attention as much if you use your knees or kicking (as i was taught) but more on voice comands or thiers owners throwing rocks to make them go?!?

The view from up the top was cool. You could see all of Dali old town from there. This Chinese girl who worked in a cafe up there and spoke pretty good english told us the tracks we could do. We decided

Dali - 3 pagodas 02.06.08

The lions guarding it outside.

to do a 1.5 hour one (each way) as we were going to catch the 7:30pm bus to LIjiang. The hike was really pretty but eerily quiet. It reminded me a bit of the house tucked away in the mountains in "The Shining" (Redrum, redrum).

After finishing the hike we had some tea at the cafe (where the lady gave us directions). We got the horses back down the mountain. That was something else. I swear it felt like a mission and a half and i was just riding the horses. Imagine going down a mountain on horse back, where its slightly slippery and the incline is about 60 degrees. Crazy!
When we got to the bottom i got a bit of a trot in which was sweet😊
We then booked our ticket at the bus station for Lijiang and had dinner at the Tibetian cafe. We got back to our hostel (MCA hotel) and picked up our bags and realised we were running late so we started running for the bus - then realised this maybe foolish so got a taxi there instead. The bus was running late and we got on about 7:40pm. We got to Lijiang

Dali Old town 02.06.08

The new complex for the Bai minority.

around 11:40pm (after 4 hours of attempting to sleep on the bus) and walked around town looking for the international youth hostel ( which is actually calle the ancient town youth hostel). We got rooms for 25 yuan (tahnks to Jian's membership with the international youth hostel). Had a shower and settled down for a good sleep (my best one yet).

Additional photos below

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