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Wow, what an interesting couple of days we have had. Yesterday we decided that we were finished with Kunming & would catch a late sleeper bus to Jinghong. We asked at reception at our hostel (Cloudland) how long the trip would be & they said it was about 15hrs, so we booked the 10pm one so that we would have most of the day to get some stuff done & then we would arrive at a decent time at our destination to try to find another bus to get us closer to the Lao boarder.

Our first stop for the morning, was to send a package to Canada, this time we sent it air-mail, but it will take at least a month to get to Canada rather than 3 days & 1/2 the cost. We found it very confusing that there are 2 different types of air-mail. Anyhow, the guy at the post office (which was near the hostel) spoke really good English, which made the process much smoother than if we solely relied on our Chinese & my mime. From there we went in search of the minibuses that take you to the bamboo temple, stopping to get some nice figs on the way. We searched for ages & read the guidebook numerous times to check the details, but still couldn’t find the buses & gave up, choosing to catch a taxi instead.

The Bamboo Temple was great, it’s up in the hills & best of all, there aren’t many tourists there. The temple is full of statues of hundreds of monks, all very different in appearance, most of which seemed to have rather sad expressions on their faces. We had a few hours to spend there, but managed to see it all, rather lazily, in under two. The vegetarian restaurant was closed, which apparently serves some fantastic food, which was a little disappointing, but we did enjoy our figs. They had a nice area at the very back with a pond which had turtles, frogs & fish in it (+ mozzies, we could have stayed longer there, but they were hungry little guys). It was a rather nice place to take photos & just chill out. The entrance fee was only Y6 each too, so really quite cheap. We managed to catch a minibus down into the city which was nice, only Y5 each & then a #27 close to our hostel.

We did a few more little errands, buying some more of my favourite chips for the trip, wasabi flavour (YUM!) & more figs, plus a couple of bananas & cucumbers for the bus trip. There were a couple of video game arcades that we passed, which we went into & spent $2 for 7 or 8 games, not bad really - sooo cheap. We might have to do that again, perhaps our next trip to China, when we go back for Tibet.

We left in a bit of a hurry, eating some food as quickly as possible & then hailing a cab to the bus station. One of the girls at Cloudland wrote “South Bus Station” for us in Chinese to give to our driver. It was about an hours driver from the hostel to the bus station & we were cutting it a little fine, as we left at 8.30, when we had planned to leave at 8pm. As we were driving along, we thought that some of the scenery was looking a little familiar & when the taxi driver took us to the Western Bus Station we knew it wasn’t good. He insisted that was where we needed to go & we weren’t getting out, I left Geoff in the cab & ran in to find someone to confirm that we were indeed at the wrong place, which I did & I managed to get them to write in Chinese “South Bus Station” for us to give to our driver. Unfortunately the girl at Cloudland wrote the wrong place (we checked later to confirm that the taxi driver didn’t just take us to the wrong place on purpose). Holy crap!!!! It was now 9pm, we needed to be there no later than 9.45 & apparently it was an hours drive. For a very rare moment, I didn’t really feel all that worried about it, but the taxi driver was a little worried & so was Geoff.

Somehow we got there by 9.30, I don’t know how, but we did. I didn’t really have a lot of time to think about any of that though, I only just managed to step out of the taxi, when I was pushed aside by someone else who wanted our cab. China has been a bit of a culture shock for me, to put it mildly. I don’t mind it there, but some of the cultural norms annoy me (Spitting - not just on the street, but in shops, restaurants, trains, buses etc., Pushing & Shoving, Lining up & being pushed to the back because everyone else doesn’t line up, Ripping off the foreigners, because we apparently have money, Constantly haggling over prices, Screaming into mobile/ cell phones, Staring - often in an almost menacing manner, maybe they don’t like Western people). There are still some great Chinese that I have met, but because there are so many people in China I guess that you see more of the negatives, or I am just noticing it more. Having to be constantly vigilant so as to not get ripped off (or at least not as much as you could be) is quite exhausting.

Anyhow, so we got on the bus, which left at 10 exactly. We asked for one top bed & one bottom, along the side of the bus, which we got, only there were on opposite sides. Most of our luggage was stored underneath, with each of us carrying our little packs on. There is a small area for storage but not much. Sleeper buses are notorious for people having things stolen, so we were pretty careful with our belongings & didn’t have any issues. Neither of us slept very well though, as the bus went around corners, you constantly felt like you were going to fall out, which didn’t help.

We arrived at Jinghong just before 7am, (about) 9hrs, much shorter than what we had anticipated (15hrs). The bus driver had to get us off the bus, everyone else had gone, I thought that they were having a smoko (as they did at the other stations we stopped at on the way) so I was catching up on some sleep - so disappointed to get kicked off, that was the best 20 minutes sleep from the whole trip. I minded the bags, whilst Geoff went into the station to see what  our options were for the bus & luckily a bus was leaving at  7.20 for Laos - Wohoo! So off one bus onto the next.

We were supposed to get off at Mohan & then we had thought that we would catch a tuk-tuk over the border, but we didn’t & boy did that make it so much easier for us in so many ways 1/ we could say that we were on a bus & point to the other passengers (you need to give a flight or bus # etc) 2/ we didn’t have to worry about which way we were going, well that happened after we worked out that the bus was going to Luang Nam Tha, our desination 3/ we didn’t have to worry about our bags & getting them from one place to the next.

The Chinese side as always was very fast & efficient with their processing of our passports etc. We even had 3 immigration officials come out to ask if they could get photo’s with us, which was amusing. The Lao side was slow to say the least.

It took then an hour or more to process us & by that time the whole bus had been done & was waiting for us. We waited at the immigration office at Botan for a while, then someone came, took our passports & we waited some more, then they came back (20 min later) & gave us some visa paperwork to fill out & left (oh bring your own pen, they don’t give one), then much later they came back, took the visa paperwork & passports, then later someone came & did our visas & gave us more paperwork to fill out, which you then had to wait for someone else to come & look at it & stamp your passport to say that you have entered Laos.

It was kinda amusing that as I was getting my passport looked at (visa checked etc - which costs $32 USD) some woman came up & slammed 2 passports down in front of me, wanting to be served immediately & seemed very annoyed that I was having my passport done & not hers. Geoff told me later that apparently she didn’t have enough money to pay some sort of fee, so her rushing & trying to jump ahead really didn’t get her very far.

After I got my passport stamped etc I rushed off to find the bus & make sure that we hadn’t been left behind, all of our bags were still stowed underneath & we really weren’t 100% sure that our mixture of Lao, Chinese & Thai + mime had been all that successful, but apparently we had managed to convey not to leave us behind. It probably helps that we stand out compared to everyone else on the bus, but we did take a HUGE amount of time to be processed.  Oh well, the customs area took even longer, I think that we were there for about 2+ hours & we weren’t the ones that held up the bus that time, got to catch up on some sleep which was nice.

The bus stopped at a small village, perhaps still Botan, not sure & everyone had some lunch. One of the locals offered us some of his food. He bought some frogs on a stick, pork & sticky rice, fortunately he offered us a couple of pieces of the pork & the rice, but no frogs. Not sure how long that stuff was sitting out for, but hopefully we don’t get too sick from it (I have the weak stomach, Geoff’s is made of steel), was nice of him to offer it to us. We didn’t bother eating anything there, we only had about 22,000 Kip & weren’t sure if we would need that later (which was a good choice). We saw a horn-bill bird (a bit like a toucan), which was very cool when we wandered around in search of a toilet.

It wasn’t much farther to our destination. We choose to stay at Manychan’s, as the one & only ATM is located across the road. Luang Nam Tha isn’t huge, which makes it really nice, so chilled out compared to China. Rooms here are only 50,000 kip, the double rooms have a double bed, desk with stool, wardrobe, TV, fan + bathroom (with a western toilet). There is an air-conditioner, but as I understand it you pay extra for it - I am assuming that you get the remote for it when you pay, so you can use it easily.

We did our trip out to Shilin to see the Stone Forest, today.

There was a slight delay in getting ourselves on our way, we had to check out, put our baggage in storage, try to find a bank to get some more money (which was a bit of a task), then try to find some food. We found a bakery with some weird Chinese style western breads & Chinese style too, Geoff bought a Yaks meat Danish (which didn’t look like a Danish & the Yaks meat was probably just cheese), Buckwheat cakes (fruit filled - like cookies/ biscuits that you get with fruit inside), Blueberry Caterpillar fun (a bun with squiggly lines on the outside, which was cut in half & had some blueberry spread inside, then put back together again). We found some fruit for me at another shop, mango & nashi fruit + we bought a bottle of juice & some chips. Again we had read that the food at the Stone Forest was expensive, which was partly why we bought some before we left, but mostly because of my allergies, you get food supplies where you can.

With us staying at Cloudland Youth Hostel, we caught the #22 bus to the Eastern Bus Station (not far from the hostel & the shops that we went to) & then another bus to Shilin, which stops near the Stone Forest. For some reason we didn’t seem to get harassed by the touts as much on this trip, which was nice. We got off the bus & wandered down to the stone forest area, through the market stalls.

The Stone Forest is nice, but NOT worth Y175 per person. We had 4 bus trips (2x #22 buses to & from the Eastern Bus Station @ Y2 each way = Y4 + 2x buses to & from Eastern Bus station to Shilin & vice-versa 1x Y50 & 1x Y52 = Y110 each) which didn’t cost as much. We did see some people (foreigners) using photo ID cards, (which were drivers licenses) to get a cheaper price, saying that they were student IDs & they got Y45 off so from Y175 it went down to Y130, still an obscene price, but it would have been better than paying the Y175.

The park was nice, but like every other place, full of Chinese tourists, which is fine, it’s just that there are so many people about, which can make finding a quiet spot interesting. We did manage to find a few places that weren’t as busy & once you do, it makes it so much more enjoyable.

I managed to have an allergic reaction to a plant that I touched in the park, which made the day interesting. I was trying to look at one of their signs, which had a plant that had overgrown in front of it, so I could read the map. At first my arms were a little itchy & then all of a sudden I had a red rash that covered my arms. We washed them with a bit of water we were carrying & then I put some Paw-paw ointment on my arm - wow that stuff really works well. It took a while for it to completely go away, infact I still have some spots on my arm now, but at least it isn’t as bad as it was.

We got some videos in Auslan about the park from a place called Sword Peak Pond, which was a lovely spot to chill out for a while & not too many tourists there, although most people stopped to have a stare whilst I was signing, which was a little off-putting.

I am used to people staring when I am signing, but this is a different stare & it doesn’t just happen when I sign here, it happens all the time. The women are the worst, they stare & give you filthy looks & when that happens dozens upon dozens of times each & every day it gets a bit much. The staring is done in a really rude way. Every once in a while I do something back, like hold my hands in front of my face like I am a caged animal being gawked at or Geoff and I have had staring competitions with each other (which does actually turn them off, you gotta stick with it for a while though) or you just stare back, but I find the later one really hard to do & I can’t do it with the same menace & rudeness that they do. Not saying that every Chinese person stares at us, but there are soooo many that do.

We walked around the outside loop of the park towards the end of the day, which was nice, well worth it if you can, not only are you away from the crowds (you just have the odd group of tourists in their little buggies being driven around) but it is really quite nice scenery there too. We got back to the car-park around 6pm & had a little trouble finding the bus. We did eventually find one, there are a couple of ways into the main carpark area (both with boom gates), one has a dude next to it, who lets out buses and cars, the other has a building, which is a bus ticket office (when you are in the carpark, facing in the direction of the Stone Forest, it is on the right side). We bought our ticket & waited for the bus, we had heard that the last bus was at 6.30pm (18:30) but our bus, which I think was the last one, didn’t leave until 18:50. The trip back was quite fast, only about an hour & we were back at our hostel by 9pm (it’s about 45 min from the eastern bus station to the stop closest to Cloudland, Zhong Xia).

When we were at the Eastern Bus station (on our way back), we saw a Deaf couple which was cool, but as we were waiting for our bus & they were obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. Not sure where they were from, but not Chinese, they had a home-made Phrase book, that they flipped through to converse with people, pointing to different phrases, it was quite cool.

Anyhow, its time for dinner & we have laundry to do (about 2 loads - their washing machines are small) better go & see if I can have anything to eat here. Tomorrow wee head off, will go to the post office to post some stuff back to Canada, try not to spend too much on postage like last time & then we head off down south towards Laos, we will probably catch the bus to Jinghong.

Bugger, it’s raining, well, it’s pouring to be honest. What a bummer. We are supposed to go to Shilin today, perhaps there will be less people because of the rain - hahahaha, shouldn’t get our hopes up on that one.

We have to move rooms today, at the moment we are in a twin, which is nice, but to be honest it’s a little weird at the same time to have separate beds. I find it amusing that the bathroom is in a little section off to the side, no door. It’s ok for us, nothing that we haven’t seen, but in a room that has twin beds I am assuming that they generally have “friends” that stay in these rooms & they don’t necessarily want to see their travel buddy on the toilet (it’s a western style one) or nude in the shower, or maybe that is just my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I like the style of bathroom, it’s quite cool, just a little weird in a twin style room. Not really sure what sort of room that we will end up with, when we made the booking we could have either a dorm bed or a twin, but when I looked at their brochure this morning it appears that they have double rooms too, so maybe we can get one of those….

Breakfast this morning is fruit, a peach & mango - yum! Geoff is feasting on the mango seed - yum, I better get some too.

After spending the morning with Jojo & Molly & enjoying some more fantastic food - I wish that we were in India already, so I could enjoy some more (but then that would mean that our trip is nearly finished & I don’t want that to happen yet), we caught the bus to Kunming.

Jojo & Molly & Goobler (their VERY cute little dog) took us by taxi to the bus station. Man, I wish that I could speak more Chinese OR more importantly, at least understand it. It was handy having Jojo & Molly not only was it much easier to catch a taxi, but finding out information about the bus was much easier. I made an attempt to ask for some information about the bus to Kunming & gave up when I was pushed back in line several times, despite being next in the queue repeatedly.

I didn’t cope very well with the lack of respect for queues in Mongolia either, sometimes finding it easier to just leave the shop than be screwed around. That is exactly what happened at the bus station too & I couldn’t be assed standing in the queue & being pushed in front of anymore, so I didn’t get any information about the bus. Fortunately Jojo & Molly found a man who was able to help us. There are a couple of bus stations at Xiaguan (New Dali) within a few blocks of each other. Apparently depending on which one you go to, that will determine the cost of your ticket. I don’t know which is which, but it is cheaper (by Y30 each ticket) to leave from the transit station (where the buses reside & where you arrive when you come from Kunming to Xiaguan - New Dali). The man that they spoke to, was quite nice, he even walked us over to the other station.

When we arrived, we gave another man Y200 for 2 tickets, who went inside & bought our bus tickets for us & brought them out to us again, (the tickets were Y100 ea = Y98 for the ticket + 2Y for insurance, in case there is a crash or something) + we got a free bottle of water each, which was really cool. We didn’t get any of that last time, when we came from Kunming to Dali, good to know that we should get a piece of paper with insurance details on it, no-one told us that before.

I hate saying good-bye, but unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Jojo, Molly & Goobler (sorry for the mis-spelling his name, Jojo & Molly). On the flip-side it is nice to be able to say Good-bye to people too, better than not meeting and making any new friends at all. We tend to be very quiet & keep to ourselves a bit, so we probably don’t meet as many people as others, so when we do meet & make new friends it’s really quite nice.

The highway is now open near Xiaguan - New Dali, but unfortunately we still had delays. We were stuck in one part for about an hour - all up the trip took over 6hrs. Geoff and I passed the time by playing cards, Gin. Our last game determined who would have the first shower, turned out to be me. There were 3 movies played on the bus trip, the first one was not too bad, it was a martial arts sort of movie with your typical tragic ending & the other 2 were frankly a little weird. The last one was particularly annoying with a fair amount of constant high pitched lines, none of them were captioned in English.

Despite us having a proper flier for Cloudland Youth Hostel, it took a little while for us to find a taxi that knew where to go, but we did find one, which is good. We could have caught a couple of buses, but that would have taken a while to sort out & too much stuffing around. We made a 2 night booking, but apparently we have to move rooms tomorrow, still not sure where, so we will have to cart all our luggage back downstairs (we are on the top level, 4) & then setup again tomorrow night.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Shilin to see the Stone Forest. We are NOT doing a tour, just catching a bus there from the Eastern Bus Station (Y30 per person, each way), should be interesting.

Wow, what a nice afternoon/ evening we had.

Jojo came to meet us at Sweet Tooth & we caught the bus to their home. Molly didn’t finish work until 5.30, so we had a bit of time. We dropped off our bags & chatted for a while. Jojo is studying medicine, which I think that we both found amusing, we have so many friends that are doctors.

Jojo gave us some tips for India, which was cool - Don’t eat any food from the locals on the trains, buses or planes. If someone tells you that their aunt or wife (etc) made this special food, don’t trust them - they will drug you and rob you, leaving you naked. He also mentioned that you should use pre-paid taxi’s, so that you don’t get ripped off, which was quite good to know. Most people know some English there too, so it shouldn’t be too hard to communicate (not any worse than China, I can imagine).

After a little while, we went out to meet up with Jojo’s friends, Donbor & Subhasish near the university. It was really cool to see the University, they have about 3,000 students that attend that campus. It’s interesting that the foreigners are screwed across the board - there is this expectation that because you are not Chinese, you obviously have money & they try to get it out of you any way that they can. The dorms are crowded & no-one is allowed to cook, you have to buy food from the canteen/ local shops & there are extra fee’s for anyone who is not native to do different things - which kinda sums up our trip so far. Jojo couldn’t live on-site in a 4 person dorm room, which is why he lives off-site, although he still has to pay for his share of the dorm room, apparently he isn’t the only one to have left either.

As Jojo has a place with a kitchen his friends come over when they can to enjoy some Indian food & yesterday was a day off from Uni, so it was that day that everyone came together. Donbor, Subhasish, Jojo & us did a little shopping. We went to the markets & bought some food. Jojo bought some veggies and mutton (yum), we didn’t see scorpions, but we did see a dog, poor little guy all caged up, waiting to be eaten (not that he probably knew what is in store for him). He was a beautiful dog too, quite sad actually. I knew that it happens, but it was a shock to actually see a dog that was to be eaten sometime in the not too distant future.

Our next stop, Wal-Mart, to buy some wine. It was quite funny seeing a Wal-Mart, which is a mix of department store & supermarket. Subhasish went off to another shop to buy some more plates, whilst we were at Wal-Mart & then we all met up & caught the bus back to Jojo’s & Molly’s.

Molly had arrived home by that time & Jojo’s other friends were here too, Avijit & Swarnendu (5 doctors in total). Geoff, Donbor & Molly went out to get some Dali beer, around the corner, as it was much cheaper than buying it at Wal-Mart - 12 bottles (600ml each) for Y36 (AUD $6)  - VERY cheap. It is actually cheaper to drink beer than water here, it was the same in Mongolia & Korea too.

The company & food was amazing.  We started with Onion Pokora (Bean flour, Onion, Salt, Chilli, Cumin, Water) - which I love, I have had it once before when my Uncle came over to Australia & we went to the Sunshine Coast. The main meal was mutton liver, which was awesome, never had liver that tasted so good - it didn’t taste like it was liver, mutton curry, rice (but it was a special indian rice) + some Chinese dishes (Cucumber salad, with vinegar) + more. 

It was such a great night & we made some great friends. It was actually really nice for us, as we have heard a lot of horror stories about India, so really nice to meet some great people. The hospitality has been amazing, I just hope that we do the same for everyone some day. I wish that we could stay here much longer, but alas, our Chinese visa expires on the 15th (6 days) & we have to get over the border into Laos before that happens, which is a shame. We anticipate that it will be at least 2 days bus ride to the border, but not really 100% sure either.

As I have mentioned in another post we have been frequenting The Sweet Tooth shop every day that we have been in Old Dali. Molly who works there, has been very hospitable, yesterday we went there to await our bus’s departure & sat in the Cafe (rather than staying at the guesthouse, much better vibe at the cafe). As I can’t eat the sweets (due to my allergies) Molly asked if I would like to have a rice noodle soup, I was happy to come with her to another shop, but she insisted that I wait there. Wow, that was the biggest bowl of noodle soup with pork I have ever seen - it was really yummy, although a little too much chili in it for me, I actually didn’t finish it (which was a shame), must have taken me about an hour to eat the 1/4 of the bowl that I did. At first I really wasn’t too sure how I was going to eat even that much, but after scooping out much of the chili paste that had been put on-top, I coped a little bit better.

Anyhow, as I was eating the soup, Molly approached us & invited us to come & stay with her & her boyfriend, Jojo. Unfortunately, we are running out of time with our first visa stay for China, so we weren’t sure that we could stay + we had already booked & paid for our bus to Kunming & organised accommodation, so we sadly refused.

Wow, the look of disappointment on Molly’s face was heart-wrenching, so we decided to have a re-think. It isn’ very often that you meet people who invite you so willingly into their home & she appeared genuinely upset that we could not spend some time with her & Jojo. It is experiences like this, where you are invited by the locals to stay that often bring about the best experiences & great friendships come about as well, traveling is all about this sort of thing really.

The place that we had booked the bus with, was 2 doors down, so Geoff wandered over & asked if we could cancel our tickets & how much it would cost, it was 50% (about $20AUD) & we adjusted our accommodation booking fairly easily. As Geoff put it, if you can’t afford to adjust your schedule so that you can enjoy experiences like this, then that’s pretty sad.

Jojo is from India, so we are having an Indian Curry tonight - yum!!! Will be a nice change from fried rice, altough I did have a beef and ginger stir fry today, which was nice. It appears that not all the meat here is coated in flour and egg, like it is up north.

o let me pay & then invited us to stay, so for Molly was very disappointed & to be honest, so were we, it felt as though we had broken her heart by refusing, so we had a bit of a discussion & decided that we would see if we could perhaps cancel our bus ticket & change our accommodation booking. We lost 50% of our bus fares ( which = $20AUD), & managed to change our booking without any real worries.

One of the reasons that we came to Dali was that I had read in the Lonely Planet book about a place called The Sweet Tooth. It is owned by a Deaf woman, Gao & serves sweets. She went to the USA to learn how to make the desserts that she serves & although I cannot sample the food because it’s made from everything that I am allergic to, it is apparently very yummy. I wish that I could sample it, not only does it get good reviews from other travelers, but we have been there several times already to indulge Geoff’s sweet tooth.

Gao seems to be doing reasonably well with her coffee shop, but wow does she have some battles to face. If you are Deaf and Chinese, you cannot get a drivers license over here. Owning a shop, she needs to get supplies all the time, so she has some hearing staff, who have a license that can pick up stuff. Traveling overseas is a task & a half too. Oh & Interpreters, well they are very rare here, Deaf people rely on passing notes, no-one can afford an interpreter. When I was speaking to Gao, she said that she was quite lucky, as some of her staff are hearing, she uses them as interpreters, when needed, which saves her some money.

She had the idea of opening the shop, so that she could employ other Deaf & she has a great relationship with the massage place up the street, which employs Deaf masseurs (5).

There are about 50 Deaf people that live in the Dali (Old City) area. So it’s a bit like Lismore in size.  Most people are outside the city, but I have to say that I have seen quite a few Deaf people on the streets here, probably about a dozen or more, it’s been so cool.

I am picking up more Chinese sign & getting to practice my International sign too, with the occasional Auslan sign, which is cool. It is so nice to be traveling & able to communicate with Deaf people so easily. Don’t get me wrong there are still times when I struggle with some signs & have to ask for clarification, but my conversations in SL are much better than my spoken Chinese.

Gao & all the other Deaf people that I have met at the massage place seemed suitably impressed that I was able to remember their sign names (I don’t know their written names) so well, which was a nice compliment. I feel like I am adapting reasonably well with my SL too, interpreting for Geoff & other hearing people who want to follow any conversations has been to keep my skills up.

When we first went to the massage place, there were 2 Italians that were having foot massages who were very interested in following our conversation & managed to get a bit of an education about Deaf Culture in the process, which I think was a very valuable experience. It was quite interesting to see their reactions when they realised that there were different types of SL around the world, but we could still communicate so well with each other. They managed to learn a little bit of Chinese SL too & tried to use it, which was really nice.

If you get a chance to go to the massage place - it is a must see, it’s on the opposite side of the road from Sweet Tooth, down a little bit, near Foreigners Street. The massage is awesome too!!

We had a slight adjustment to our travel plans. We had originally intended to catch the train from Chengdu to Kunming & see Shiling (the stone forest), but about an hour before we were due to arrive at Kunming, we decided that we would catch a bus to Dali instead - the day was already stuffed because we had spent most of it traveling, so we may as well keep going.

The train trip was 20 hours & the bus trip was supposed be only 5 hours, but it turned out to be 7.5, all up though we were traveling for about 30+ hours - a rather long time.

Its definitely a place to come to visit though if you can. Lonely Planet writes about it as being a place where the Chinese mostly come to visit, it is a bit of a tourist trap, but for a tourist trap, it’s quite nice. For the most part, this leg of our trip to China has been to rather large cities (Beijing, Xi-an, Chengdu..) so coming to Dali (Old City) with a population of only 40,000 has been refreshing.

We are staying at YuYuan Hostel, which is not too bad. The staff are a little surly, at least the women are. Lonely Planet said that there were “endless smiles” from the staff here, so I can only assume that either the staff have run out of Ganja or the person who came to review the place here was obviously smoking something. To be honest it’s been such a pain in the ass to get the staff to do anything (they are as useless as tits on a bull) that we don’t deal with them unless we have to. There is a travel agent near the Sweet Tooth Cafe (which I will mention specifically later), which we have used to rent bikes (Y15 ea) which was cheaper than YuYuan & we also booked our bus to Kunming through them too.

We have lost count of how many women have offered us Ganja (Marijuana). They do it in quite a funny way, they come up to you with a silver piece of jewellery & thrust it towards you & say “Want this?”, there is a short pause, then “Smoke some Ganja” They do it with their little kids strapped to their backs too, which is a little weird. I have only had a couple of women approach me directly, most seem to gravitate to Geoff.

The Leshan Grand/ Giant Buddah, was a bit of a last minute addition to our trip. We had thought about doing it when we were on the train from Xi-an to Chengdu a few days ago, but only if we had the time. Seeing as we can’t get the train to Kunming until the 4th we now had time.

We went with 4 other people, Michele & Marta from Italy & Mariana & her mother from Mexico. Michele had organised a car & with the 6 of us it worked out to Y100 each + you had to pay extra for the guy to turn on the air-conditioning (Y50 between 6), which was just weird.

The trip should take about 2 hours drive from Chengdu by bus, we did it by car in nearly 4 hours (yes, one way). We had a quick stop along the way at a roadside toilet/ food area, which permeated of piss as soon as you walked into the building, so needless to say a loss of appetite occurred, at least for me, Geoff bought himself an ice-cream.

We had left just after 8 & arrived around 12, which was not really ideal, we had a few hours to look around, with us needing to arrive back at the car by 5pm. Although there was a little confusion to start with, as our driver showed us 5 fingers & said 4, but we all went with it & told him that we would be back at 5 & showed him 5 fingers back.

We all set out together, but quickly went our own ways. The walk from the north gate to the top of the Buddah wasn’t too bad really, but the walk down the cliff face - wow, there was a bit of a queue for that one. We looked around a bit before joining the line & had some food - I had a small collection of food with me (tinned ham, funny rice crackers with icing sugar ontop + banana chips that were a little soggy & preserved orange peel, which tasted off & smelled off too - didn’t eat too many of them) & Geoff bought a couple of other bits (cookies, coconut lollies & a bottle of sprite) - I think that it humored the locals that we were eating (mostly) a packed lunch & that we were so obviously tourists.

The temple at the top was closed, (although they still had lots of people making offerings in front of it, which was still quite cool to see) so after a quick look, we joined the queue to make our way down the side of the cliff face. It took about 2 hours to walk down, 1 hour (at the top) to get to the top of the stairs & then an hour to get down to the base of the buddah. The line was quite slow, so it was easy to read any signs on the way & be entertained by the Chinglish, sometimes we got a general gist of what they are trying to say, but it’s funny none the less, I don’t really know that the locals really understood how funny some of their signs are.

Anyhow, about the buddah, he is 71 meters high. A monk decided to build it as there were a lot of boats that were sinking in the treacherous waters (3 rivers converge into one) & he thought that by building it, the waters would then become calm. In the end the waters did calm, but not really in the way that he intended. As the buddah was carved into the cliff face, a lot of the debris (large pieces of rock) fell into the river & filled in the deeper areas (thus the calm).

The areas that we enjoyed most were the ones that had very few people, like the Dragon Tower & the ponds etc nearby. The middle of the day seems to be one of the worst times to look at things, but sometimes you can’t get around it, can you?

The trip back was a lot faster, only 2.5hours, which was nice. I think that the driver was in a bit of a hurry. It was funny when we got back, we went to pay the extra Y50 for the using the air-conditioning & the driver had no idea what was happening, in all honestly we could have not paid the extra & been fine.

It seems a bit of a rip that you pay for the car & then have to pay for air-conditioning on top of that. I think that we were supposed to pay for the drivers lunch too, but we didn’t. Just include the “extra charges” like air-conditioning & lunch within the cost, it just feels like people are trying to rip you off left right & centre, there is more often then not another hidden cost with most things. Oh well, Such is life eh?

Our dinner was fantastic, we had another Hotpot, this time with the plain broth, instead of the hot & spicy one that we tried initially, which burned both in & out. It’s the 3rd time that we have had hotpot & it’s one of our favourite dishes. I love it because it means that I have meat. Finding tinned ham that I can eat is a task & a half, but when I do, I get to have some meat then, otherwise there are very few dishes other than hotpot that allow me to have anything but veggies & rice. Most of the meat is coated in egg & flour before cooking. As I am unable to eat very much meat at the moment, I can see me eating it even less when we are finished traveling through Asia, then again, I might have to make up for not eating as much as I normally do by having a rather long & extended pig out.

Yesterday, before we discovered that we couldn’t get any cash out - DOH! We booked a couple of places on the Panda tour that Sims Cozy organises, it was only a 1/2 day tour (for Y88), which includes transport & entry tickets. We were a little weary of joining a tour, especially with the last one that we did (to the great wall) where we left the tour & made our own way back - boy were they pissed.

Anyhow, we left at 7.45am this morning. There were 2 van loads worth of us. Our driver seemed to love the sound of his horn, for most of the journey he seemed to honk it just because he could, not because someone was in his way. You gotta love the way that they drive though, lanes are ignored, a 3 lane road suddenly becomes 5 & everyone cuts each other off - there is a reason why they don’t allow Western people to drive here, we just simply wouldn’t survive. Our drive to the sanctuary was about 20 minutes away from Sims to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Base.

We really weren’t too sure what to expect, cement cells with panda’s in them came to mind, but we didn’t. There were obviously some pandas in some of the cement cell areas when we arrived as there were some tourists that gathered around one when we were wandering through, but our guide steered us clear of there.

The good thing about joining a tour, is that they arrive at the Panda Base early in the morning. The Panda’s are fed around 9 - 10.30 & that is the only real time that you see them move around. After they are fed, they just sleep. No wonder, they only get about 2% of the nutrients they need from the bamboo that they eat.

The panda’s were cute, they are unlike other “bears” in that they have an extra bit that is like a thumb (but isn’t) which allows them to eat with one hand, instead of 2 like the grizzly bear etc. We saw some younger ones playing around, which was cool. It’s a bit of a shame that you can’t really find them in the wild, there are only 1000 left! Man & his greed have a lot to answer for.

It’s nice to see that China is trying to do something about the panda’s, but at the same time, you can see the greed. Perhaps I am being cynical, but they seemed to be “pimping out the panda’s for the western tourists”, charging Y500 (AUD $100) to put an arm around an adult panda & get your photo taken OR you can pay Y1000 (AUD $200) to hold a baby panda & a photo. I can’t see too many locals being able to enjoy that experience, which is a shame, it seems to be an animal that the country is very proud of.

In Australia we have the Koala, which most people want to hold & that’s about $50 to do, which at least seems a bit more attainable to the general population, but then again there are more than 1000 of them & in some places they have even been called a pest, …….. yet they are still popular, hmmmm.

We didn’t hold/ hug & panda & get a photo, but I did find a really cool, yet very wrong, goth looking panda, which I bought (Y10 - $2).