After travelling for a gruelling 28 hours, and changing our plans on the train, we arrived in the small, quaint city of Dali.
We changed our plans upon boarding the train in Chengdu, we had previously decided that we were going to stay in Kunming until Monday when the Vietnam embassy reopened and try and change our visas, so that we could leave China and head straight down to the Border. Are we glad we changed our minds or what!!!!
For some unknown reason we then planned that when we arrived in kunming we would head out to the bus station and take a bus a further 5 hours to Dali which is a tiny city loacted in the Yunnan Mountains.
So, we arrived in Kunming, jumped off of the train and with a little help from a local guy we located the bus, bought our tickets and endured a bumpy, bum numbing 5 hour journey into the mountains. However, when we got to Dali, it turned out that we were actually in Dali City, not the same place as Old Dali where we were heading to!
Old Dali was a further 18kms north, and so when we got off the bus, there were a hoard of locals, who had clearly just been in town shopping in the markets for the day, looking for tourists to take to Old Dali. We hopped in an old pick up style van, and off we went with a local man and his wife to Old Dali, we refused to pay until we arrived at the hotel we had specified, and sitting in the back bumping around, with thoughts running through our heads, like are we crazy, they could be anyone, I decided that she was only little and if she tried anything Im bigger than her so it would be ok! Then I remembered which country we were in, and thought that she might be a tae kwon do expert or something! We need'nt have worried, they were both very sweet and were happy to make a bit of cash and help us out.
So. we checked into our very nice little budget hotel, showered and ate steak and jacket potato (yes imagine the pleased looks on our faces when we saw the menu!! The noodles were becoming a little tiring!).
It was worth everything, Dali is without a doubt the best place we have been in China, it actually feels a lot like Canterbury, its busy but small, the old city is enclosed by restored city walls, there are quaint little shops, cobbled streets, stone buildings, a good blend of local cafes and some travellers cafes.
The locals here are a mountain tribe, known as the Bai people, they dress with beautiful head dresses and traditional clothes, of course some of them are there clearly for the tourist, but others dress like it everyday and its there usual getup! Its not uncommon to see a man or woman walking through the streets with 2 baskets across their shoulders connected by rope (kind of looks like weighing scales if that makes sense!?).
After big city after big city, which here in China are very polluted, and very populated, we almost gave all this a miss and hightailed it to Vietnam, if we hadnt have changed our minds we would of missed an awful lot, so this was one of our better decisions!!
Yesterday, we strolled through the cobbled streets of the city, did a spot of shopping and ate lunch in a nice street side cafe, we then took a local bus a couple of kilometres out to The Three Pagodas, a big temple complex set at the feet of the mountains, they were really pretty, but they wanted the equivelant of eight quid each to get in, which is a little steep on our budget, so we walked all around them from the outside of the complex and had a really nice day.
Weather wise, its cool in the mornings, but when the sun comes out its boiling, yesterday we diddnt put any lotion on and burnt a bit - stupid us forgetting that at altitude you are more likely to burn - so today we know!! It lashes rain in the early evening and it was even still raining this morning when we woke up. Its actually really refreshing to get that rain - so we arent complaining!
Our visa is due to run out on the last day of this month, so we shall be leaving then, we will be heading up to Lijiang - which is about 200kms, and 3 hours on the bus further north, (higher up in the mountains too) within the next couple of days, then we shall think about heading back to Kunming and decide where we are going to cross the border into Vietnam.
Hugs
Ali and Matt
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More thumbnails ...
Dali Hotels
27 votes 
This is a top pick!
