Birds & Flowers, then bus to Dali

Fri, Jul 24

Mike

We spent close to an hour trying to book a hotel in Dali. We finally convinced the hotel staff to make a phone call for us. Two different calls to two different hotels in Lonely Planet – “mei you” (full). So we gave up, and took a bus to the Bird and Flower Market. As we got off the bus, I bought my second umbrella. The first was over $7, but it fell apart pretty quickly. This one is $10, so we'll see. The market was not much: a couple of open air pet stores, including one with a dish of bugs, presumably to feed the pets. Hardly any flowers at all.

We walked the km to Green Lake Park. On the way, we passed the old Chinese medicine pharmacy in Kunming. Green Lake is kind of pretty, with abundant lotus in the water, and lots of people on the walkways.

We took two buses back to the train station, where we each had a bowl of Crossing the Bridge Noodles (8 Y apiece). Sort of like pho. The base seems to be a chicken noodle soup with chili oil. Into it are thrown some meat, tomatoes, veggies, etc.

By now it is close to 1 PM. There are many internet cafes near the train station, so we visit three of them. One is closed, and the other two require a Chinese identity card: no foreigners allowed. So we took the bus back to the hotel, from which we had checked out. We went up to the internet in the business center (20 Y per hour) but no one was there to collect the money. We searched ctrip.com, found a hotel, and took the number back to the front desk. They made the call. We had a reservation, and moreover the 260 Y room was only 180 Y ($27).

We decided to splurge on Jul 28: instead of taking a 10 hour bus from Lijiang to Panzhihua, then a 14 hour overnight train to Leshan, arriving Jul 29, staying in Leshan, and then going on to Chengdu on Jul 30 -- we decided to fly from Lijiang to Chengdu the morning of Jul 28, check in to a hotel, and take a day trip to Leshan. This whole thing costs us $135 apiece in airfare, and gives us 2 extra days to see Louyang, Kaifeng, Nanjing, etc. We pressed our luck in the Kunming hotel business center, and got that reservation done also.

Picked up our luggage, and walked to the bus stop. Right next to the hotel was a health and fitness center, with a picture of an exercising woman with a clearly western face. I guess if you exercise there, you start looking like an American.

We got to the bus station just before 3 PM and bought two tickets to Dali (actually Xiaguan - the real city 7 km closer to Kunming) for 96 Y apiece. The tickets said 16:00, so we set our bags down and waited. A guy came up, said he was on the same bus, and we should quickly get on the bus. It was only 15:10, but as soon as the bus fills, it leaves. Apparently this is true all over this part of China. The time on the ticket is merely the time the bus will leave if it doesn't fill by then. We had seats 19 and 20 out of maybe 27 in total. The bus driver turned on the engine at 15:23. Something was wrong with the bus, which didn't leave until 15:50. We didn't get our tickets checked until 15:45, when we were almost out of the bus station.

Traffic is beyond impossible in Kunming (Tony had told us that if he tried to drive the 5 km to his house at 6 PM, it might take him 90 minutes). In our direction, it only took 15 minutes to get on the expressway (right next to the train/bus station). Anyway, by 16:05 we were on the expressway, and ready to drive. There was one 10-minute stop halfway to Xiaguan. After the rest stop the driver put on the TV, with two concerts from Dali (we think). The noise level was excruciating, and the screaming crowd coming through the bus TV was so loud that Curtis had to cover his ears. However, the really cute kid in front of us on the bus, who had been sleeping the first 2 hours, stood up, and watched intently the rest of the way.

We got to Xiaguan about 20:15. In the bus station, we saw dozens of sleeper buses, with their lights on, getting ready to load up. In Xiaguan, the taxi touts wanted 40 Y to get us to Dali Gu Cheng (大理古城 Dali Old City), where all tourists go (none stay in Xiaguan, unless there are exigent circumstances). We walked a few meters to the other side of the bus depot, found the local bus, and paid 2 Y apiece. We got dropped off two blocks from our hotel, Landscape Hotel. It was 21:15 or so, and they had no record of our call. They did however have a suite for 580 Y ($85). Curtis complained loudly, and they finally put us in a 460 Y room, and charged us 230 Y for a very nice room (a little small, but very clean).

We went out to dinner at Marley's Cafe. Curtis had a hamburger, with fries, and onion rings. I had the fried goat cheese appetizer, and the Bai special fried chicken. The goat cheese was not as good as in Kunming, but still tasty. The chicken was not fried at all, but stir fried in a white sauce. What made it special were the local mushrooms, the bamboo, etc. To bed at 23:30.

Curtis

We rounded off our stay in Kunming with a morning trip to the Bird and Flower Market, which turned out to be a bit grungy - road construction and some recent rain didn't help. I had hoped for something a bit more extensive, nevertheless there were interesting things going on, and it was clearly a market that caters to the locals and not to foreigners. In fact, I can't remember seeing a Western face anywhere within the market. Not a lot of flowers in evidence, but if you wanted a caged bird or music lessons on traditional Chinese instruments, or perhaps a nice big root of ginseng, well you're in the right place here. We then walked down to the Green Lake Park, which was packed with strollers and boaters enjoying some leisure time in the placid lake that was filled with lotus in bloom.

We are now in the old city of Dali, heartland of the Bai people, and are staying in the Landscape Hotel, a beautiful location built in the style of the old buildings. We are in a 3rd floor walkup, but it is quite comfortable (they serve a decent breakfast, too). Finding a wangba is much easier than it was in Kunming, and they are not concerned with passports or ID cards. Clearly they are more accustomed to Western tourists around here.

Our bus trip up here was interesting, watching the landscape get more and more mountainous. Cultivation occurs in all possible places, and you could occasionally see field hands wearing the classic farm hats weeding or carrying their loads balanced equally on two sides of a shoulder stick or sometimes a big basket held behind the neck. The highway was quite good once we got out of Kunming so the bus went at a good clip. At one point I saw a man with a goat that was nibbling on the weeds growing in the berm: the people's way to mow the grass. Field crops here seem to depend on the location of the slope. You see lots of corn (the American type) growing on the slopes along with other vegetables. Rice gets planted mostly on the bottoms, but I also saw lotus in one boggy spot. We went through a succession of tunnels, one of which was over 3 Km long.

Another thing I noticed along the way was the prevalence of colorful decorative artwork painted on the white stucco walls of houses. One of the most popular images is the lotus, which is a prominent Buddhist image symbolizing spotless enlightenment arising from the mire of human existence. Although, in this particular stretch of the road (between Kunming and Chuxiong) I noticed lots of images of dinosaurs. I found out later that this region has major excavation sites of Jurassic and Cretaceous fossils. There are some dinosaur museums and theme parks in the area (Lufeng), which might have been interesting to check out if we had had more time. Ah, yes, time is always the problem when traveling....

We arrived late in Dali, but this town caters to tourists, so we had no problem finding dinner at 10 o'clock. We went to Marley's Cafe, which offers local cuisine as well as Western fare. Mike remained pure to the agenda, but I decided to go for a hamburger and onion rings. We also shared some fried goat cheese. Very satisfying to me, starved of proper bread and dairy products.