I apologise to Yunnan for the lateness of this blog; it really doesn’t deserve such neglect. But the new term here in Xiamen is a busy one and somewhere in the midst of writing characters, memorising vocabulary and breaking my nose walking into a Starbucks door after a study session the blog got a little waylaid…
However, as is warranted, here follows extensive praise of the marvellous province that is Yunnan. A province so marvellous, in fact, that I was willing to travel it alone...
I spent the first night at a hostel in Kunming where my tourism just about stretched to a nearby park, after which I returned to the hostel and spent the remainder of the day with fellow hostelers sitting on the roof terrace with a few beers and getting alarmingly sunburnt for early February. I think the weather was probably the main thing that sold Yunnan to me; there was not a day without sunshine and although the nights were a little cold all the hostel dorm beds had electric blankets! What a thoughtful province.
The next day I jumped on a bus up to Dali then shared a motorbike taxi with some Greek guys to get to Dali Old Town, which looked every bit as beautiful as I’d been hoping.
The town lies in the south-west corner of a huge lake (Er Hai, which means ‘ear-shaped sea’) and at the base of mountains; all round the lake are villages where the Bai ethnic minority Chinese still live. Though now rather touristy, much of the ancient town has been preserved and the blue skies and fresh air from the lake give Dali a wonderful atmosphere.
Of course, I’d only been there about an hour and a half when I got food poisoning. I maintain that it was something I ate on the road or earlier that morning because I don’t think Dali is spiteful enough to give anybody food poisioning but nevertheless, I spent a good couple of days eating plain rice with soy sauce, tentatively sipping warm water and lamenting my misfortune.
Fortunately, it was a misfortune that seemed to be doing the rounds of the Yunnan hostels. I met 2 British girls, Kav and Harriette, who were also sick. Misery loves company, so that was nice. And we weren’t really that miserable. We were staying in a really comfortable hostel called the Jade Emu.
It’s sister hostel, the Jade Roo, had a roof terrace. So I was sold.
One day Kav and I wandered around the old city. It was very pretty - ancient rooftops...
Set against a mountain backdrop.
Part of the old town wall still exists; from it you can see the lake.
And there was this amazingly beautiful church.
Another day we managed to drag ourselves out for an organised tour round the lake, which was stunning.
We visited a very old village…
A temple of sorts on the lakeside…
A market town (you can see the women still wearing traditional headdress)…
And various beauty spots.
Other amazing things of note in Dali were…
The Y5 (about 50p) Tibetan vegetarian buffet where the only catch was you had to eat every single grain of rice on your plate.
The bakeries and sandwich shops (‘Sweet-tooth’s chocolate cheesecake muffin may be the best baked good I have ever tasted).
And Rice, a hostel worker who was always on hand to get me my warm water and who entered a pool tournament never having played before. And his English name was Rice.
So that was about it in the charming old town of Dali; I didn't do an awful lot but it was just the sort of place I (and my food poisoning) needed. After about 5 days in Dali I was recovered, relaxed and ready for Lijiang, a stepping stone to the Tiger Leaping Gorge and more roof terraces than I could dream of...
