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Dali, China
Entry 13 of 18 | show all | print this entry |
So it's been a while since I last did one of these. I am currently in Sydney, Australia, which is bloody expensive after you have been travelling Asia for 2 months!
Is anyone still actually reading these? I am almost a month behind with the travel blogs and 6 days behind with my diary and it is becoming a bit of a chore to do. To be honest, I really can't be arsed to do them any more!
Ok, this one is for Dali, China. Just to set the scene I was previously in Kunming and suffering with what I thought was a hangover.
Thursday 10th April
I woke up at 7am feeling as bad as I did the day before. That's when I realised that it probably wasn't a hangover that I had. I got a taxi to the bus station and then spent a horrible 6 hours on the bus trying not to be sick. In Dali I got into a taxi with the first person that showed me a card for a guesthouse. I ended up at a place called MCA, which was nice with rooms set around a big courtyard area. The girl from the reception showed me to my room and as soon as she left I was sick. I decided to go straight to bed. It was 3pm!
Friday 11th April
I woke up at 7am and still felt terrible. I was really disorientated and I couldn't get my eyes or my mind to focus on one particular thing so I decided to go back to bed for a couple of hours. I woke up feeling a bit better, but not much. I hung around the guesthouse for a few hours before heading out to explore Dali. The town was really nice and chilled out apart from the large Chinese tour groups that you encountered every now and again. The town is basically one main road running north to south within the city walls with a few streets running off of it. No cars are allowed within the walls. One of the streets, Huong Lu, was full of cafes serving Western food so I decided that I should probably try to eat my first meal in two and a half days. I managed to force down two pieces of bread and a bowl of soup before going back to the room to watch Chinese tv. I was actually contemplating bypassing the whole of China and going straight up to Beijing so I could get my flight to Australia early, as I had lost so much weight in the previous ten days that you could see my ribs!
Saturday 12th April
I woke up at 8.30 feeling like a new person. Thank God! I went and ate the buffet breakfast downstairs before using the internet for an hour or so. I tried to email Koen and Tom but it wouldn't send as the emails were being sent back saying that the address didn't exist. As soon as I had finished on the computer I was hungry again, which was definitely a good sign after not having any appetite for ages. I then set off to explore the town a bit more than I had the day before. I walked all the way along the main street until I reached the north gate. I soon realised that there was bugger all outside the walls and headed back inside. Just inside the gate a bicycle came skidding to a halt in front of me. It was Koen! I arranged to meet him and Tom at a cafe in the evening. It turns out that he draws 1's that look like 7's which is why the email address didn't work! I then went to a place called Cafe de Jack and sat in the sun eating some lunch. I went back to the guesthouse to chill out for a couple of hours before going back out to meet the Cardoen brothers. We sat around for a couple of hours drinking and eating and chatting to an old French guy, Charles, about the joy of downloading music before heading to a street full of bars for another drink. Me and Tom were chatting about the comedy genius of 'Dude, Where's My Car?' and how great it would be to stay in the Hooters Hotel in Vegas (which I thoroughly intend to do) whilst Koen was stuck in meaningful conversation with Charles about the sorry state of the world etc! When I asked if anyone wanted another beer Koen suggested we try somewhere else. Me and the brothers ended up on the roof of a place called Bad Monkey which had no barriers to stop from falling three stories onto the street below! It turns out Koen suggested somewhere else because he was bored of talking to Charles! I had purchased a bus ticket to Lijiang for the following morning but the guys persuaded me to hang around for one more day. We stayed for an hour or so before heading back to our guesthouses. When I got back the gates were locked and I had to wait bloody ages for someone to get up to let me in!
Sunday 13th April
I got up early to try to change the date of my bus ticket and my reservation with the MCA guesthouse in Lijiang, which the girl at reception managed to do for me. I had exhausted my entire supply of clothes a couple of days before so after collecting them I had to completely repack my bag, which seems to be getting harder and harder to do each time even though I am not buying anything! I decided to move to the same guesthouse as the brothers as theirs was half the price of mine - 50 yuan. That's ₤3.50! They didn't have a room when I got there but they said they would in a couple of hours so I gave them the deposit and room rate in advance so that they would save it for me. As it was 10am I knocked on the brothers door but they were still in bed so I went for breakfast at Jack's by myself. As I was walking back I heard Koen whistling out the window to me so I went and sat in their room until mine was ready. For $7 I got three seperate rooms - all decent sizes - a bathroom, a bedroom with double bed and a living room with a leather sofa and a tv. Amazing! After a clean I met Koen to explore the town more. Apparently you could walk along the entire town walls so we headed to the south gate. The first stop was a mediocre temple on top of the gate that we didn't even bother to go in. We then started our trek. The idea of walking and getting a great view of the town was short-lived though as it turns out you can only walk about 400m along it! We then headed to the park just off of the main street. The Chinese's idea of a park is definitely not the same as mine. It was pretty much just concrete paths with about 3 trees and a couple of ponds. I then spent a frustrating two hours re-sizing and uploading some of my photos from a CD onto the travel blog for your viewing pleasure. I bumped into Tom inside so we went for food at Jack's for the third time in two days. It wasn't very nice, but the milkshakes were amazing! After going back to chill on my sofa for a couple of hours I went downstairs in the guesthouse and saw Koen and Tom sitting out on the terrace loaded up with 640ml bottles of Dali beer that they had bought for 3.5 yuan (25p) down the road. I decided to get in on the action and paid the shop a visit. As usual Koen went to bed first leaving me to teach Tom how to play Speed. I actually won!
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