Dali: Day One

We took a train from Kunming to Dali because it was cheaper, but took a whopping 8 hours versus the 5-6 it would have in a bus. I prefer trains though, because you can walk around and its not as bumpy as a road would be (don't forget that I got the worst food poisoning in China on a bus in the Shanxi province. Long distance buses are kind of ruined for me). We got into "New Dali", actually Xiaguan, and took a bus to the Ancient City of Dali, "Old Dali". Our hostel is the sister hostel to the one where we stayed in Kunming. The Dali Hump is awesome and we are in an eight-person dorm with heated blankets and a tiled bathroom with a huge overhead showerhead. It's brand new and is pretty great.

The first night we ate at a place called Mr. Li's cafe where we had one of my favorite Yunnan dishes-- the giant hashbrown. Yunnan has some really great potato dishes but the giant hashbrown is the best! We also had some fried yak cheese which was sprinkled with sugar and was very tasty.

Dali is very beautiful and is contained by a wall and several gates. The streets are all cobblestone and there are some cool streams going through the walking streets. It's pretty touristy and the streets are lined with restaurants, cafes, and bars.

Climbing Cangshan

Yesterday we got up and hiked two hours up a mountain backs up to Old Dali. Considering we were already at 6000ft elevaton, we took a lot of breaks! We got up to a temple where we ate lunch made by a really nice man who apparently also made good moonshine. Then we walked for three hours along a paved road that went along the contours of the mountain and we were able to see all the beautiful streams and crevices of the mountain. At the end of the path we took a cablecar down and it was amazing to see how far we had gotten and how high up we were. Dali also has a huge lake near it and the views were spectacular.

We roll in expat packs

The crazy kids from the train wanted us to meet them because it was their last night in Dali so we headed out after a much-needed shower. They had befriended a Chinese local named Peter who had led them to this old man's house in Dali. The old guy currently cuts hair, but has photos in his shop of himself as a Red Guard, playing his violin, and in various places around China. He apparently used to play in the Beijing opera and has played for Mao too!

He taught us how to play the er hu (the Chinese two-string instrument) which was really neat. The two strings were the C-string and the G-string and the fingering patterns were the same as on a cello. It was kind of tricky but really cool one I got the hand of playing a scale on it. The old guy's erhu had so much resin build-up on it and the place that his bow rested had carved an indent into the wood! This was one of the coolest experiences I've hever had in China and I have a few videos of him playing.

I should also note that we picked up two English teachers who are actually teaching outside of Qingdao. One is from England and the other is from Canada and they are 18! Their boss sounds really sketchy and actually fabricated their university degrees for the police.

The expat pack then wandered around on the streets looking for a restaurant to eat at, but we wandered into the red-light district. This was when the train kids decided to pull out their medical grade alcohol and teach everyone to blow fire. Sean blew a huge fireball and I got it on video.

Then we found a chuanr place and sat in the back room until 3am eating some good chuanr and fries cooked in chuanr spice (amazing!). It was a really random night that followed a great day. Jenna's feeling a little bit under the weather today so we're going to walk around the town and just take it easy.

Till next time--