In Dali
on Tina's Journal (China), 16/Jul/2009 10:14, 34 days ago
I am in Dali Northern Yunnan which isn't where I was expecting to be this week but definitely not complaining. Jiang Yun Qin and I left Simao on Sunday and spent the evening in Kunming. This is the capital of Yunnan province. On Monday we had lunch with Paul and got our train tickets which he had previously bought for us. We also met Nita a lovely girl who graduated from Simao college a couple of years back and is now working as a teacher. Thanks Nita for being our guide. It was great to spend the day in Kunming and walk around a couple of Buddhist Temples and the park. Later in the evening we got to the train station to take an overnight sleeper train to Chengdu only to find it had been cancelled due to a landslide! The next train option was a 22 hour hard seat the next day which we were reluctant to take. After a quick discussion we decided to change plans and instead explore Northern Yunnan so decided to head to Dali. We took a train the next day which turned out to be a VERY slow one taking 10 hours cramped into a hard sleeper cabin with 6 other people...not so pleasant. However we got here on Tuesday evening and we have explored the town and last night we stayed in a hostel in the Cang Shan Mountains. We did a 26km walk today at 2600m which was amazing and the views are stupendous. Dali is a tourist town but it does still hold an indigenous Bai population. We have met some really nice British Tourists  here who are travelling around the world and it was interesting to hear about the things they have found challenging since being in China.Our plan is to go to Lijiang tomorrow spend a few days there and then do Tiger Leaping Gorge. I am not sure yet if I will head to Xi'an it will depend on finances as I will probably have to take a flight now.