BootsnAll Travel Network



Dali: Ancient city of dreadlocks and pancakes

a hybrid religious building, Dali. A chemple?

Sat-Tues, May 26-29 2007

A frightening thing is happening…I’m beginning to sound more and more like a reborn Christian. The amount of times I’ve uttered “THANK YOU JESUS!” has reached evangelical proportions. Every time I find the bus station, manage to get on the right bus, sit next to someone who’s not smoking or snot-sucking (which is very rare…), find a bank which accepts my card, the list is growing…
So, after a frustrating search for the bus station (the taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong one) I again muttered my little mantra of thanks when I finally collapsed in my seat on the minibus to Dali. When I got on 5 minutes before the supposed departure time, I was the only passenger. The driver, who wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of “Fight Club” was outside hustling the crowds. 30 minutes later, people were sitting on top of each other in the aisle. The bull terrier got behind the wheel and sped off.
Leaving Kunming I spotted a sign over a bridge(the first sign I’d seen in English since the border post): “May our friends from afar stay longer with us”
The outskirts of Kunming bear a grim testimony to the living conditions of the masses: a tangled mess of concrete apartments, their shabby husks tightly wedged in against each other, so that the inhabitants of one block can see their misery reflected in the facing block, in an ever expanding web of urban decay. It makes London’s council estates look like Club Med resorts in comparison.

So far, the Chinese countryside has been similar to that of Vietnam, except trhat the towns and villages are a lot kinder to the eye, with quaint farmhouses built in the traditional tilted roof style. A nice change not to see the ubiquitous wedding cake houses of Vietnam. However, the industrial onslaught on the environment is sadly evident. Looking out of the bus on one side was a pastoral scene of women working in the rice paddies. Turning my head to the other side, I was confronted with a smoke-billowing factory.

4.5 hours later, we arrived in Dali New City and after scurreling arround like a lost dog, I got on the local bus to Dali Ancient City.
Dali is the Chinese equivalent of a European medieval walled town. Beautifully ornate gateways guard the four entrances into the cobled-stoned town. Unfortunately like every beautiful town, it’s also been discovered by the marauding tourist buses carrying their cargo of pillaging tourists.

I checked into the “Friendly Guesthouse” (only $6 for a very decent room, en suite) and went for a stroll. Dodging the hoardes of Chinese tourists and their guides dressed in tacky Bai costumes (Bai is the local ethnic minority), I made my way to “Foreigner street” – so called due to its abundance of pancake and cappucino shops catering to the backpaker community (surprisingly very few in town). I was constantly harassed by ancient, wrinkled Bai women: “You want smoke ganja?” Oddly enough the authorities seemed to turn a blind eye to the geriatric dealers of Dali.

Elisa had left Kunming a day before me and we had arranged to meet up at “Jim’s Tibetan Peace Cafe” that evening.
As we were chatting, and drinking a heady brew of corn wine, ginseng and other strange looking roots, we saw James, the Singaporean, walking past. What a serendipity!
We later met up with a journalist from Beijing writing a guide on Yunnan province and the four of us set off to check out nocturnal Dali.

Enjoying a Dali beer and street barbeque

I soon realised that Dali was one of the places where hippies have set up camp. Most of the bars looked like student squats, pumping out the predictable staple of Bob Marley, The Beatles, or Trance. I pride myself on my extensive music collection but it purposefully does not include any of the above.

The next day I spent coffee-shop hopping and writing this blog. Eager to take a break from writing I strolled down to the end of the street and stopped outside a brightly painted wall: “The Rainbow Bakery” and underneath in twirly lettering “Flour Power”. Coffee and cake seemed like a good idea, so I stepped through the gate….and into the Hippie HQ.

I have to pause here, and make a confession. Like everyone else I have my prejudices. By now you might have guessed that mine is hippies. I’m not a hippie hater, in fact some of my best friends have strong leanings that way, but I must admit I like making fun of them. They’re an easy target. In my experience, they have no discernable sense of humour, and are so easily offended. Ofcourse I’m wildly generalising but that is the nature of prejudice…
So, there you have it. Please skip this section if you feel you might be offended by my hippie bashing. Peace.

As I stepped through the gate I nearly tripped over a toddler clad in exactly the same tie-dye garb as her mom (why enforce your bad taste in clothing on your hapless offspring?). The only sign that some baking did in fact take place here was the outside wood-burning oven and a girl putting some mango and banana slices on a sheet of dough. By the looks of it, the flies would finish off her effort before it even reached the oven. I made my way through to what looked like a counter inside. I didnt see any display of cakes or pastries of any kind. A guy with the mandatory Ghengis Khan ponytail was sitting on the counter.
“I’d like to try out one of your pastries. What do you recommend?” I asked in my most chilled out voice.
It took him a while to shift his attention away from the girl next to him. He looked rather non-plussed by my request.
“Anything sweet?” I calmly pressed on.
He slowly turned and took a lonely jar from the shelf. “We have some mango jam”
The idea of scoffing a jar of mango jam with my coffee did not seem too appealing.
“It’s OK, I’ll just have a coffee, thanks”.
He shrugged his tattoo clad shoulders and returned his attention to the tie-dye explosion next to him. “You have to… like listen to the angels, brother” she cooed, “They will…you know… help you to manifest the romance and love you are seeking…” ending her nugget of fluffy advice with a hug.
Maybe a good thing they didn’t have cake… TAKE ME TO THE VOMITORIUM! PRONTO! Why do all hippies talk in these sickeningly sweet, organic sugar-coated sound-bites??

I gingerly sat down on the paisley covered sofa. Across from me a trio of girls were dancing to French troubadour music, ankle bells jingling and dreads sprouting in wild directions.
It all reminded me too much of a reborn-Christian camp. The same beautific smiles, lots of hugging, calling each other brother and sister, the glazed-over eyes, crap music and no sense of style amongst their members.
In my plain black top and black pants, I was obviously giving off negative vibes and creating disharmony in the land of the rainbow children. They clustered on the far side of the room and thankfully steered well clear of me. Most people, like animals congregate in herds. They immediately picked up that I didnt have the same scent as them.
With my prejudice intact and reinforced, I drank my coffee and left.

me and the dreaded hippies

The next day was spent in agony on a mountain bike whose seat was a cleverly disguised instrument of torture. I ended up on the highway and hardly saw anything of the lake (Erhu Lake, the 7th biggest lake in China..bit of useless info). God, how I missed my little Honda Wave back in Hanoi! After 25kms and still getting nowhere, I had had enough, and persuaded a tuk tuk driver to take me and the bike to the nearest town. As I arrived it started raining and I missed the weekly ethnic market I had especially cycled all that way for. Hey, it's all part of the experience, I kept on telling myself…
I hailed down the next bus back to Dali.

Think I've had my full of banana pancakes and Bob Marley, so heading off to Lijang tomorrow. Hopefully, it's not on the hippie trail 😉



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3 responses to “Dali: Ancient city of dreadlocks and pancakes”

  1. Ilse says:

    In my volgende lewe wil ek jy wees

  2. Lynn says:

    A damn good read! We have the same
    feel about old time hippies and modern
    ones. Cool writing – I could be there,
    feeling the atmosphere. Many thanks for
    making us part of your adventure.

  3. Peter says:

    Yea, good story. nrnrI was hanging in Dali when these hippies arrived there. Although I share some sympathy with them, somehow I found them more or less funny too.nrnrI found your website since I was looking for info concerning the news that the police would have stopped their annual “Peace festival”. Anyway, it didnt open, I mean I was not able to get the news, A A.

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