A Journey to Well Known Places

We left hustle of Kunming for Dali, a small town a mere 7 hours train ride away. The old town is surrounded by mountains and next to the 5th largest lake in China. At least I think that’s what the guide book said. Now I know where hippies vacation in China. The town is crawling with dreaded headed fire dancers moving from one eclectic cafe to another. The area is known and I’m sure largly responsible for creating the blue batik and tie-dye that invades our hippy markets on Saturdays, so naturally we picked some up. Hey, they make it there! Marc insisted we get some bikes and I happened to get the most uncomfortable one in the lot. We rode around the city wall, checking out the pagotas and the four gates that surround the city. The city itself is friendly and beautiful, but we opted to head to the mountain after a couple days. We stayed in a hostel called the Higherland that’s just above the end of the ski lift you take to get up there. From there you can see the whole city of Dali. There is a paved path you can walk that skims and cuts into the mountains. The views from there are amazing and the pictures will not quite do it justice.

We headed back to town and caught a bus to Lijang. Old Town Lijiang is where the Chinese vacation. At night the bar street lights up and is full of Chinese patrons shouting songs back and forth from bar to bar. It is lively and very comfortable here. Again, more batik and tie-dye. This area is very similar to Dali, but much bigger, more meandering cobble stone rodes, with many more shops to pick from. No hippies here though. No dreads. Marc and I have been wandering the city for the last couple of days, you cant help it here. There are virtually no street signs. There are a few streams that run through the city and occasionally we try to orientate ourselves by them. We are opting out of going to Snow and Dragon Mountain as we are heading to Tiger Leaping Gorge for a 3 day hike tomorrow.

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