After my time in Sichuan Province, I headed south to Yunnan Province, the land of Shangri-la.
I flew to Kunming, had a few hours to kill in the evening, then headed out the evening on the overnight train to Dali! After 8 hours or so of not very good sleep, we arrived.
After walking through the silent streets just after sunruse, I checked into my hostel, dropped my bags, refreshed, and headed out for the day.
I was out by about 9am, which I’m pretty proud of. Somehow I was functional. I rented a bike just down the street from my hostel. I then headed straight for the temple just outside the Old City walls.
I went to the temple thinking I would stay for about an hour and spend most of the day cycling around. I ended up staying for several hours – basically until I needed to leave and find lunch. It’s my favorite temple I’ve been to in China so far!
The thing that really made me love the temple even more was, just as I was about to leave, a group of monks coming up to the main temple. They processed up the square chanting, so I followed them back into the temple and watched them chant and pray until they were done. It was really moving.
Before I got to the active part of the temple (the highest part), I thought the whole place was no longer active, but the highest few levels of the temple are used as an active monastery. It’s obviously a beautiful backdrop and a beautiful temple. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s also full of energy.
I left the temple and cycled towards the lake. I cycled through the valley and was going through farms, which I hadn’t really seen before up close.
I stumbled into a village, found some lunch, and kept cycling along the shore of the lake.
After an hour or so, the lack of sleep was catching up with me, so I headed back to the hostel to rest for an hour. I locked my bike up outside my hostel for an hour, and when I came back out to get it, it was gone! The bike was stolen from right outside my hostel. The woman who I rented the bike from wanted me to pay almost $200! I went to the police station and after three and a half hours of waiting, being yelled at in dialect, and negotiation, I still had to pay a bunch of money for the bike.
The whole time, this woman was trying to get money out of me and was really mean to me. Even the police officer told her not to be so harsh. It was a highly frustrating situation, especially when she wouldn’t listen to me and I felt like no one was even trying to listen to my side. I left the police station and cried on the hill across the street. Luckily, there were horses grazing there and the sun was setting. That helped a bit.
I called my parents that night and went to bed early. It took weeks for me to think about this and not be upset. The silver lining is that I got to practice my Chinese a lot that day.
The next morning, I headed away from civilization. I definitely needed it after the events of the previous day. I got up, got breakfast, and watched the sun rise over Dali from the roof of my hostel.
I headed out at 8am and walked from my hostel, to the temple I went the previous day and walked up into the mountains. It took me about an hour and a half to walk to the trail head, which involved a lot of distance and a bit of altitude change as well.
After being a bit turned around and getting the view below, I found the trail head. I had to register with the guards at the trail head who took my name and nationality and asked me several times if I had a lighter – smoking and fires are absolutely not allowed, since it’s so dry there. After the interrogation, they watched me finish one of my bottles of water and insisted on refilling my bottle with the water they had. How nice!
The trail was steep and harsh. I learned later that this is not at all the tourist path. The tourist path starts from the other end of the city. I started this trail by following the south wall of the Three Pagoda Temple.
For hours, I didn’t hear or see another person. I encountered a rather large wild bird at one point, but nothing and noone else. It was glorious.
I eventually scrambled out of the woods and found the paved path that follows the side of the mountain. It got a lot easier from there. I got some great views of the peaks and the valley.
The path eventually led to the main temple up on the side of the mountain. I found it pretty underwhelming after the temple I had been to the previous day. I encountered some mules coming up the mountain as I got close to the temple. I ate lunch there and then headed down into town.
I was going to take the cable car down, because I was absolutely exhausted after all the climbing up, but then there was a guy with mules who were going down the mountain. I figured it was a lot more interesting than taking the cable car and it would still save my knees!
The mule dropped me off just outside of town. I went back, showered, and changed clothes into something more appropriate for strolling around town.
That evening, I walked around the shops, found some really nice local artwork, and eventually ended up in a cafe with live music where I read my book for an hour or two. Dali has lots of bars and cafes with live music. It’s really nice in the early evening as the sun is setting.
I went back fairly early so I could get an early night, as I needed to check out of my hostel at about 5am to get the train to Lijiang!
