Dali, Yunnan Provience China
Day 1
About 2 in the morning I felt a tap I opened my eyes and Dirk is standing over me, “Do you have any toilet paper?” “Yeah, I think I do not sure where it is, can’t this wait until the morning?” I say. “No, it can’t.” I find my bag with my eyes half closed and locate the roll I brought on the trip hand it over to him and didn’t think much more about it until my alarm went off at 630 to catch our bus to Dali.
Dirk had spent the better part of the night dealing with what can be best described as a double sided whammy that rendered him a patient for the next 24 hours. After a brief discussion he decided he’d get on the bus with us and head to Dali. Because of Dirk’s illness we decided that it would be best to add an extra day in Dali to make sure Dirk had a chance to recover.
Our first full day in Dali was Feb. 22nd and we decided to check out Cangshan Mountain by way of the gondola in search of a nice lazy day to recover from Tiger Leaping Gorge. When I think of a gondola ride to the “top” of the mountain I usually figure it’s going to take me to the top and it should be a nice leisurely walk, for some reason this wasn’t the case we made it to the crest of the mountain before turning sharply and heading down into a valley just to exit and begin a hike back up the mountain. If I wasn’t sure how my legs felt before this point in time I realize quickly that Tiger Leaping Gorge had taken its toll on my body and I didn’t want to climb anymore. Once we reached the trail the started towards the “Grand Canyon,” which essentially was a narrow gorge that ran between the mountains. If the area wasn’t in a terrible drought there would be a stream running through the canyon. After the flop of the canyon we headed towards Zhonghe Temple which sits at the other end of the trail.
About 1 KM into our hike we see a sign for some pools on the trail that looked to be the mid-point for our trek, the sign read four kilometers, our lazy day just turned into a hike and none of us brought water. We hiked for about 3 hours passing hundreds of locals who were amazed to see 4 foreigners on the mountain. The highlight of their day was to practice their English by greeting us all with a “HELLLLLOOOOOO nice to meet you.” After 11 KM mainly through the woods with nothing to see we finally arrived at Zhonghe Temple which turned out to be one of the biggest disappoints I’ve ever seen. The temple was built during the Ming Dynasty and overlooks the city of Dali and Erhai Lake (the view was the only thing that saved this place). Picture a historic temple at the top of a mountina that has vendors lining the courtyards and stairs selling everything from beer and noodles to posters of your favorite Chinese popstars. On top of this there was trash littering the temple on the stairs, in the courtyards even in the trees. We did a little bit of exploring around the temple but there wasn’t much to see so we tried some noodles and actually threw out our trash and headed down the mountain.
We stayed at the YuYuan Hotel in Dali which sits in the old town about a block north of the city drum tower. It turned out to be the perfect location because of the proximity to food, drink and the historic markets. Our eatery of choice became the Yunnan Café serving up local favorites and western food at a reasonable price (18RMB or about $2.50 got you a burger and fries), we ended up eating 5 meals here over the course of the couple of days we spent in Dali. The most memorable part of our meals wasn’t the food, it was the woman in that ranged from late 30’s to mid 60’s approaching us looking around and saying “Do you want to some the gonja?” Often times these women would approach with a small child in toe in order to take advantage of law that prohibits arresting a woman who has a child with her. Over the course of a couple of days we began to realize who they were and could tell them before they approached to stay away sometimes this would stop them from harassing us but for the most part they were still going to try to push their product.
Pictures are two from the temple one on the ride down the mountain and one of the guys at our favorite eatery.
