After Lijang it was an easy bus ride to Dali to visit my third mate in China and the last pre-planned destination on my trip. It was great to get into Dali and see my mate Dave. His guesthouse has been open for around 6 months and is definitely the nicest I have stayed at in China. The Jade Emu also gets fantastic ratings on the big hostel websites so everyone thinks its great. I'm a lucky VIP guest and will probably chill out here for a week or 2.
Dali has a great feel and is perched between a mountain range and the 7th largest lake in China. It has been slightly developed into a tourist hub but not as much as Lijang so the numbers of people around is much less - again there are city walls and water or rivers running through the centre of the town.
I arrived to find my friends from the Gorge walk and had a bit of a late night to start with. My only real concern was that my Chinese visa was about to run out so the next day I rode a bike down the lake highway and it was really easy to get a visa extension. I had heard some horror stories about visa renewals so this was a big relief and I now have another 30 days to check out Yunnan. Surrounding the highway is lots of villages and acres and acres of veggie patches which is nice to look at and see the local Bai people working in.
The next couple of days I spent hiking in the cangshan mountains which sit behind Dali. The mountains are great - there are around 10 of them and they are all over 4000m high. There is a national park behind Dali and there has been a stone path (cloud pass) built into the side of the mountains which make for spectacular walks. You walk out around a ridge to look out over the villages and lake and then back into waterfalls in the valleys. The first day we walked up one of the mountains and caught a chairlift to the south down.. and the second day I caught a cable car up and walked a different section, north, to the same chairlift down again - after the chairlift we head quickly into town for some yummy food at one of the cafes/restaurants.
Hanging out at the guest house and I have really started to fit into traveller mode and meet lots of other people. I have also bumped into some friends I made in Shangri-la and they had a spare mosquito net which will come in handy for Laos which will be my next destination.
I have actually been in Dali for around 5 days now. It has seemed to be getting harder to find time to do postings to this blog. (Thanks to all the people sending me messages and posting comments.)
Yesterday I wandered up to the 3 pagodas which are probably the most famous things in Dali. They have been here since the 800's and are in lots of photos. Many travellers don't pay to go into the complex here because it is very expensive in China terms (around $25AU) and also because you can't climb the pagodas. I was just going to wander up there and take some photos but something drew me to pay up and go in.
The 3 pagaodas had a great feel and ther were some interesting artifacts that have been found when they were restored.
Behind the 3 pagaoda's I was quite surprised. There is a Buddist temple complex that is the centre of Buddism for Yunnan. The complex is only about 25 years old as the original one had been destroyed during the cultural revoltuion and I though that it wouldn't be as good as old temples that have a more historical feel.
I think the price of the entry kept most people away and there was nice buddist chanting and music being piped throughout all the complex and gardens so it was a really relaxing and peaceful afternoon. There are 1000 statues which are gold plated throughout the complex and one hall which contained 500 lifesize ones was amazing. I thought a few of them were live people! I ended up spending the whole afternoon up there and it was well worth it.
All the walking has caused some more split heels so it looks like I'll have to take it easy for a few days.. but that shouldn't be a problem in Dali!
Luxury accomodation and I have a few books to read - the hardest decision is which restaurant/food should I try tonight!
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