In the end I decided to hang out in Lijiang for a couple more days. This was mainly spent settling up my laptop (talk about how to spoil a cultural experience of seeing a new country by sitting in café's setting up a laptop...but its been really useful already and was a great purchase) aimlessly wandering around town getting strange looks and giggles from people when I walked into shops. Shopping is a nice experience, there are attentive attendants in every shop but they don't hassle you like they would elsewhere; only when you ask for help. I even managed to get a screen protector put on my camera; I tried to get this done back home and couldn't find anywhere and when I bought some myself it was impossible to get them on without dust underneath...so how the kid managed to do it on a windy street I'll never know!! I also managed to find a new sleeveless t-shirt (harder than it sounds in China) to replace the one that was reduced to dust by the laundry in Laos that used bleach rather than powder and some new trousers as my old going out ones are shagged and China is all about trousers it seems (you see hardly anyone in shorts but that may be cause Lijiang can get pretty cold in the evenings). I have to say I wish I was going home from China as they have some really trendy clothes and more importantly they all fit me perfectly unlike in the UK where trousers are always too long and t-shirts too baggy.
Chinese people must all have small heads or I must have an inordinately big head as I wanted to find a new hat like the one I lost in Vang Vieng but it was impossible.
It has been a bit weird being in China while I get emails from the Vang Vieng lot still partying away in Phnom Penn and Shinoukville. It really sounds like they had the times of their life's there. Especially as Tintin sent round a video he'd made of us all tubing; I felt quite sad and lonely at that point. But traveling isn't all about partying, meeting woman and having a laugh is it....
I did get to experience the food a little bit more as well, found the best noodle soup place with Nicola and Sammi; they don't eat pork and that has been a bit of a mission in this town as they sort of manage to sprinkle some kind of pork in just about every dish. We also ate with the people that run their guesthouse one night - as much food as we could eat for 75p and it was all nice. Sammi got ill for the last couple of days; not sure on what as we had all been eating pretty much the same things for a few days. It amazes me that I still have not really been ill as yet; a bit of the shits in Vang Vieng but I could hardly blame that on the food with the lifestyle we were living there. I also tried out the Chinese (well I think it's actually from Taiwan originally) McDonalds equivalent called Dicos. It had all the usual chicken burgers and stuff but opted for some deep fried chicken with curry sauce and rice (well like I knew it was that before I ordered...I just pointed to number 3). It was nice; the place itself just seemed to be filled with grandfathers and their grandkids - obviously treating them to a happy meal. You do see a lot of children with their grandparents here; it's not uncommon to see an old woman with a baby strapped onto her back (prams are unknown here instead the women use big bits of cloth to attach the baby to them like a backpack).
I also bought myself a little jar thing that all the local people make tea in. You get free hot water in all the hotels and trains and stuff so it saves buying bottled water all the time; instead just drink green tea like the locals do. Feel kind of Chinese walking around with my little tea jar.
On the last night in Lijiang it was mum's 60th birthday so I made a little video message and sent that to her in the morning and eventually managed to get through to her on Skype (after trying all damn day) at 10ish. It was good to speak with her though I felt really guilty about not making it back. At least my card made it from Laos. After that I got speaking to a little car salesman from Guangzhou who spoke excellent English and strangely wanted to talk about politics etc - I say strangely as last time I was in China people were petrified to talk but maybe that was because I was in a nuclear facility and they were worried about the secret police etc. Anyway, he was really concerned that foreigners would stop to visit China and boycott the Olympics because of this Tibet fiasco. I reassured him that the one controlling factor for getting tourists here was all about the toilets...he thought this strange and genuinely expressed that Chinese people cannot go when they have to sit on a proper toilet and need to squat. He didn't really comment on the lack of doors when squatting, this was just in poor areas he assured me and didn't we have the same thing in the countryside back home...
Anyway, to this Tibet thing, its time for Simon to be controversial. I am not sure why there is all this fuss and I know it is hurting the Chinese people as much as their government. This is these people's tax money and national pride that has gone into this and you can tell how proud they are after years of struggle and pain to be staging something like this. I think it would hurt the nation as a whole if people started boycotting the games. And I damn well hope those idiots with fire extinguishers putting out the Olympic torch are spitting on the American Embassy due to Iraq (or the indigenous Indian populations who were overrun in a similar manner by the Americans) and boycotting oil from Nigeria because there are a hell of a lot worse atrocities going on in the world than have happened in Tibet. Tibet gets the attention because it is full a load of sweet old monks but my understanding (not great have to admit) is that Tibet was a feudal society with no elections and a very poor nomadic culture overseen by rich landowning aristocrats. In fact (I am reading 7 years in Tibet) when the Chinese invaded their were only 2 doctors in the country; one at the British and one at the Chinese missions in Lhasa. The Chinese have gone in and modernized the infrastructure and certainly increased the standard of living. I don't think you can ever justify invading a country and the Chinese were wrong but the point remains that people will adorn their cars with Free Tibet bumper stickers while ignoring millions upon millions of people being killed elsewhere in the world. It is bizarre watching CCTV 9 (Chinese Communist TV Channel 9) which is basically the English language propaganda channel going on about how Tibetan kids are now learning more Tibetan language than ever before etc as if they are on a major mission to justify everything they have done. OK, world politics according to Simon lesson over.
So after I had suitably chilled out in Lijiang it was off to Dali for a few days. Dali is rather similar to Lijiang in being a historic little district capital with perfectly manicured streets etc. Dali has more western influence for some reason and has a street which is just full of western restaurants and tour agents etc (but still no that many western people around). As soon as we entered the town I bumped into an English guy and asked him about accommodation. He took us to a nice little family hotel that was well cheap (2 quid for a big double room with TV etc - everywhere else in town is the same price for a dorm room) and run by and old couple. Looking at the guestbook it was obvious why it was so cheap as the place was normally only used by Chinese people. The English guy, who lived here teaching English, seemed a bit weird and started talking me through every name on this CD he had just bought. I sort of humored him and then said I had to go have a shower. When I went out in the evening I think I found out why; just walking down the high street about 5 old woman came up to me offering 'ganga' so think he was probably stoned out his head. I really never thought that kind of thing would go on in Dali but checking wikipedia apparently Dali is the Amsterdam of China...not sure how that gels with the communism thing. I saw the fella again in a bar called the Bad Monkey that is apparently owned by English people and there were all sorts of crazy people in there - like a 60 year old American guy who was totally out of his head dancing like he was still in Woodstock in '67. I had one beer and sacked it off as it was impossible to have a conversation with anyone.
On my 1st full day in Dali I set off for a bit of a walkabout town (after getting some noodle soup on the street corner for 4 Yuan (25p) - this had gone up to 5 Yuan by the next day which I refused to pay out of principle) and ended up on top of a mountain. First I went to see where all this music was coming from and ended up in a stadium which seemed to be holding a dance-off between different schools or something (see the attached video). After an hour there I was walking out I saw a sign to the cable car and thought I best go check it out. Then I arrived at a ticket booth where I had to pay entrance to the national park so by the time I had done that I thought I may as well carry on up the mountain. It did transpire that they had built the cable car for a reason...it was a long old trudge to the temples etc at the top. There was a lovely little café though where the woman spoke perfect English and she arranged the rest of my hiking for the day. The path was amazing, properly cut out of the rock face and made of solid granite blocks. And there were no Chinese walking on it as usual...I did meet the Professor from Southampton again though...small world. There were also gangs of woman painting the newly laid water pipe; it is amazing how many women you see doing heavy manual labor like carry bricks in China. Its also quite funny when you see woman selling noodle soup in the streets and their husbands will be in the background washing the dishes...can't see that back home. So I walked for 8 hours or so with some great views of Dali and lovely waterfalls. As it was my dad's birthday I recorded a video message for him at the waterfalls.
It was after 6 when I started coming down the mountain. Right at the top of the path me and a soldier exchanged a nice loud Neehow (how hello in Mandarin sounds anyway) and subsequently he wouldn't let me walk down the path on my own. We started off racing each other down but he soon tired (apparently because he couldn't have a cigarette because smoking in the national park is forbidden). We couldn't speak a word of each others languages but managed to suss out that he lived in Dali but worked at a military lookout post right on top of the highest mountain (4100m) and did 6 days on and 6 days off. We walked right down to the bottom where we came across what I thought was a refuge camp but it turned out was actually loads of traveling people there to sell their wares (which seemed to be all some kind of dried roots and fungus) and had literally set up camp for a bit complete with electricity the lot. Some of them even looked to be Indian.
In my usual style I have ended up backtracking to Dali. I thought I would be able to get a bus from here to Chengdu but then I got an email from Dave (who I met in Vietnam) saying get my arse to Xian so we can go climb some hills so as you read this I will most likely be on the 36 hour train ride from Kunming to Xian.
And just to make things more interesting, after all this slagging off the Lonely Planet I now find myself in China without one and decided I probably do actually need one here and can I find one for less than 30 quid....damn...could have got one for $3 in Vietnam. Anyway, it should be fun and a friend who lived in Chengdu assures me there is a foreign language bookshop there that I will be able to buy one in.
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