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Dali (Part 1)
Yes it is touristy but not as touristy as other places in China maybe its because whilst I was there it was actually quite quiet on the tourist front. Dali is one of my favourite places, it's laid back, friendly and has one of the best hostels that I have stayed at, the Jade Roo (there is also the Jade Emu 30 meters away).
OK so I spent a lot of time being lazy, wandering around the old town and doing some touristy things, I also nearly got arrested I think, more about that later! I also came back after visiting Lijang and Shangri-la, mainly because I couldn't face the long bus ride back to Kunming in one go oh and also because I wanted trek around the mountain.
Dali Old Town is a quaint walled citadel with a mixture of tourist and the usual local chinese shops (plus women selling 'ganja' on nearly every street), plenty of bars and even a german bakery that sells yummy cheesecake. Nearby is the Erhai Lake and Chang Shan mountains.
The Three Pagoda's was the most touristy place that I visited, it cost 121 Yuan and was in addition the most expensive entrance fee that I have paid in China so far. However I thought it was more than worth it as behind the Three Pagodas is Chongeng Temple, which has been fully restored (like most temples in China). Walking around the site was amazing and quite beautiful, there were not too many tourists so I had a chance to just wander and not have to worry about pushing to take pictures. I also had a couple of people ask me for my picture being a westerner and all (I should start charging!).
Anyway you probably want to hear about how I nearly got arrested (I think!). On my last day in Dali (the first time I was here) I decided to take a bus to the lake and have a wander around. Whilst on the bus a local tour tout spotted me and sold me a boat trip on the lake, which at the time I though was a great idea as I really didn't know how else I could arrange one seeing as I can't speak any Mandarin. When I got off the bus she spotted a chinese tourist and managed to persuade him to also do a boat trip. We got to the harbour (very loose term) and it turned out the boat was a small metal thing, by this point I though that something might go wrong as I didn't see hardly any other tourists around.
After about half an hour the boat owner spotted a speedboat in the distance and started rowing very quickly to shore, we weren't sure why exactly at the time as the owner seemed pretty agitated. There were two other tourist boats which started doing the same thing so I thought it was normal at first. The speedboat caught up with us and took some pictures then one of the men in the boat started flashing some ID and arguing with the boat owner, the other boats came across and the "officials" then tied the boats together. Luckily for my boat one of the chinese women in one of the other boats started arguing with the official and taking pictures, he then boarded their boat and argued back then took their boat back to shore. Whilst this was happening my boat owner managed to untie our boat and made for shore, but away from where we were picked up, dropped us off then did a disappearing act. Now if it wasn't for the chinese guy with me I am not really sure how I would have made it back to Dali as I really didn't have a clue where we were or where the buses stopped if at all.
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, I went to dinner with the Chinese guy and some of his friends, had a couple of beers then I met up with Richard and Gen (from my Mongolia trip) and we carried on drinking, to the point where Richard had a drinking competition with some random chinese guys at the Bad Monkey bar. All I can say is I am not really sure how I made my bus the following morning for Lijang.
Dali (Part 2)
So I came back and I must say I do love the laid back style of this town. Apart from the couple of late nights spent at the Bad Monkey my one aim here was to trek around the Chang Shan mountains before leaving for Kunming. Now as most of you know I am not really in to trekking up or down mountains all that much, must be the townie in me, however I do have to say that apart from the scary cable car up and the dodgy walk down it has to be one of the easiest 15k treks that I have done. Somehow the Chinese have managed to pave the whole route across the mountain, so much so that I even saw some cyclists peddling along the mountain.
The scenery was gorgeous however I did kind of freak out in the cable car up and did panic on my walk down from the temple (the chair lift was out of action and to be honest you could not pay me to have gone in one of those). A woman at the temple pointed me in the direction of some dodgy path down the mountain, at first it seemed ok, particularly as there was an old man walking down, however me being me lost him (he was practically running down) and then I did start to panic as there seemed to be various trails down and I wasn't sure which was the best one to take, in the end I went for what looked like the main one and came across a cemetery in the mountain. At this point I was starting to worry as it felt like I was going around in circles and it was starting to get late and the weather was about to turn. Eventually I reached the bottom and found a little village where there was some sort of religious festival going on, then the heavens opened. I can honestly say that I haven't seen a downpour like yesterday since Glastonbury a few years back, needless to say I got drenched! however I did find a local shopkeeper who took me in and let me sit down out of the storm for an hour or so thankfully!
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