 | Temple life in Dali
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Our first impressions of China, after arriving straight from Singapore's hot, humid climate to Kunming, were a little terrifying. We really noticed the lack of english signs, starting from the airport.We saw the comforting words "information" and marched towards the counter. That, of course did not mean anyone actually spoke english behind that counter. Well, somehow we managed to find a driver to bring us to the bus station, from where we wanted to leave straight away towards town of Dali, near to the border to Tibet. Our helpfull driver bought us our bus tickets and in we went, to this tiny little minibus, confused and helpless. We were told we leave in half an hour, what, of course ment one and a half hours.Then, finally we were on the road, with just Chinese, squashed in with numerous luggage, for nine hours, without a toilet break. Nice.
Outside I could see locals building the road, dragging huge stones in their backs up dangerous looking wooden stairs... I should stop complaining how heavy my packback is! | |  | Three Pagodas Dali
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Finally, finally we reached the old town of Dali, which from the distance and after dark looked a bit like Disney world, with old temples decorated with christmas lights.
We also realised it was freezing cold. Our room for the first night was fine, but without any heating, and it really got chilly in this mountain region during the evenings. Well, I put on a warm (yeah right!) layer of tops and we went exploring our new city. | |  | traditional dresses
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Dali is a very beautiful little town, surrounded by the city wall from the outside world. It is a little touristy, but most of the tourists were Chinese, so we didn't really care. Better than Germans, at least if you are in China.
For us it was also our first really cheap destination. We rewarded ourselves with some cd's and dvd's (they cost the same as an empty cd at home) and also tasted some amazingly good food. It seems to be the same as with italian food. It never tastes as good at home as it does in italy! especially we liked to eat some Yunnan region speciality, fried cheese. and I fell in love with real healthy, herbal teas, where the ingredients are not in a bag, but float freely inside. Yum! We bought some teas to try at home too!
On our last days in Dali we moved to Jim's Guesthouse and got a lovely room(with western style toilet) and some friendly service and a cute little puppy(always a good extra). Jim's nro.1- special drink, with some herbs and alcohol made us nice and warm in the evenings :) Believe me, you needed that!
Good thing about the cold was that we didn't need to worry about the mosquitos for our whole time there. Region belongs to malarial areas... | |  | Lijiang Old Town
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After three nice days and numerous photos later we left Dali to go further north, to small town of Lijiang. Lijiang is one of Unesco's World Heritage sites and really a cute, clean town, where the Naxi people still wear their old blue costumes. We did some nice walks around the old city and visited nearby Black Dragon Pool park, for some amazing pictures. It just felt so touristy to me, even more than Dali, and after few days I got my restlesness back and we decided to go back to Dali for a day, before our flight back to Singapore and from there to Cambodia.
On a bus I met my first Finnish people on our trip. They happened to be from Karttula and Kuopio, and I actually remembered seeing one of them in Finland. Small world! So we had a nice chat in a bus and ride went pretty fast! Maybe I'll happen to meet these guys in Kuopio someday.
I found this very good informative page, where you can find more information about Yunnan region and all the ethnic minorities. Just click here. |
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