Laura: We arrived into Kunming (the capital of Yunnan – a province in China famous for it’s beauty) in the morning. We exited the train and were over the moon to discover it was about 25 degrees and low humidity! In Yangshuo we only had to walk for 5 minutes before our sunglasses were falling off our ridiculously sweaty faces. We were collected by a lovely girl called Jenny from The Hump Hostel. She took us on a public bus to the hostel and we got checked in no fuss. The hostel had great communal areas but the dorms were a bit disappointing. The windows were wide open and an entire community of mosquitos were living there, neither of us slept that well due to intense paranoia!
We had a little wander around Kunming that day/night. We discovered a great food market and indulged ourselves with meat skewers and spicy potatoes. We also found a great supermarket and spent a good hour just wandering round (we are both complete losers who get excited by food shopping in case you didn’t know this) checking out the weird Chinese food, imported goods (Ahmad – they had President cheese called ‘rape emmental’ – I shit you not) and trying to suss whether the bread was sweet.
Just to defer slightly – for some reason most bread in China is sweet. Whenever you fancy a tuna sandwich you have to stand there sniffing all the packets until you find something normal. The Chinese have enough reasons to stare at us without adding this on.
The next day we were very tired due to lack of sleep but powered through and caught our train to Dali. Dali has a reputation for being quite touristy (second deferment: Chinese tourists are the most annoying I have ever encountered – they dawdle like you wouldn’t believe and the couples are the worst. The walk as though they have been surgically attached to each other and refuse to move! Ahmad has started trying to clothes line them!) so we decided to book a private room in a small fishing village just outside of Dali hoping it would be like Xingping compared to Yangshuo. Also the place we booked was 6 quid for a private room, ensuite and a lake view (we crossed our fingers and hoped it would be ok!).
On arrival we caught the bus to Dali Old Town and then tried to find the bus stop for the no. 2 bus which would take us to Caicun Village. None of the locals understood us and clearly thought we were retarded (lots of giggling behind hands went on). Luckily we spotted the no.2 bus going by and saw where it stopped so we waited another 5 minutes for the next one to come. We got on and asked for Caicun and received more blank faces until one wonderful lady pronounced it ‘chichun’ and the driver said this bus was going in the wrong direction (he didn’t actually say this but he mimed just as much!). The guy who wrote pinyin should be shot by the way – why didn’t the twat just write it phonetically! After 10 minutes of wandering round we found the proper bus stop and got on. We arrived in Caicun and followed the directions to Dali Beach Guesthouse as per the website. These turned out to be completely wrong and we were getting more and more pissed off as time went on. Ahmad called them and they didn’t speak English which also pissed us off because they said they did on Hostelworld. Anyway, someone came to collect us and we arrived about 8pm. We felt really bad for being so mad because the owners of the guesthouse were a lovely Chinese couple who spoke french and a tiny bit of English. Our room was huge and absolutely spotless. The veranda had a beautiful view of the lake and all this for 6 quid! Caicun Village itself was also a refreshing change – we were the only foreigners there and it was lovely and quiet. There only appeared to be one place to eat; a lady was barbequing meat skewers near the bus stop so we ate there and had an early night.
The next day we borrowed a couple of bicycles and headed out towards Dali. The countryside was stunning and it felt amazing to explore by bike! We had lunch at a local Chinese place and got stared at by a group of old boys drinking baijou by the shot (a minging 50% vodka like drink) which surprised me as Chinese can’t metabolise alcohol. They had clearly been practising for some years! We were heading back to the guesthouse when we spotted a restaurant called Dragon Fly so we popped in there and had a drink. It was really nice so we came back for dinner later that night. Unfortunately my face and arms were quite badly sunburned from the biking excursion so I was feeling a little sore and sorry for myself!
After two nights in the village, we headed for Dali town centre and checked into a hostel called The Jade Roo (dorm bed £2 per night). This was also really nice and straight away we met some nice people, the main person standing out was Sau, a guy from Portsmouth and chess extraordinaire. He told us some really funny/horrific stories from his many years of travelling and we went out for Dali bbq that night. Sau took us to a place where we had chicken, beef and vegetable skewers and stuffed our faces until we had food babies – all this for £1 each, incredible.
The next day we had a lazy day. We treated ourselves to a western breakfast, did lots of research on Malaysia islands and the Inca Trail, played a lot of chess and pool and went to a great vegetarian place for dinner. It was all you can eat for 50p! The highlight of the day (and the funniest thing I have seen for a while) involved an old lady approaching Ahmad asking if he wanted ganja (it’s always the old ladies in China who want to sell you drugs!). He had been asked 5 times previously by other people so he shook his head and mimed strapping a belt to his arm and injecting himself at which point the lady clearly thought we were horrible people and scuttled away!
On Saturday we hiked half way up Chanshan Mountain. It was quite a strenuous hike but we made it in about an hour – good practice for the Inca Trail. At the half way point there is a 12km path winding around the hills where you can check out some temples, caves and streams. We went into a temple and the monks were very eager for us to see the place (looking back we should have known it was a scam). They gave us some incense to light and then tried to charge us 20 quid for the privilege! I said no and Ahmad gave them 2 quid because he said he felt pressured. We should have just fucked off – what’s the worst they could do, beat us to death with incense sticks!? That night we had some more excellent Chinese food, had a wander around Dali and came back to play Chinese checkers (rock and roll I know) with Sau who beat us at yet another game!
On Sunday we went to collect our return train tickets to Kunming where we would get a bus to Laos. We had booked through a travel agent so we didn’t have to waste 2 hours getting them from the station ourselves. The girl behind the counter gave us the tickets which were standing class (the journey is 7 hours!). She tried to tell us that it was a seated ticket but we have taken too many trains now and can recognise the mandarin characters. Basically it turned into an argument and she tried to make us take the tickets back to the station to get them changed ourselves! She even tried to ignore us but we kept asking for the money and eventually she gave in and was clearly swearing at us like mad as we left. Turns out we had to do the 2 hour journey anyway!
I am writing this sat in the hostel in Dali and right now I feel very sad because this is our last week in China. After Africa I didn’t think I could love anywhere more but I was completely wrong! China is a wonderful country with such a diverse range of places to see and things to do. The hostels are great and the locals are so welcoming and friendly. After 6 weeks I still can’t get enough of the food!
We only have 4 weeks until our flight from Cambodia to Singapore (due to staying in China too long) so we have decided to skip Vietnam and head straight to Laos. We’re not that bothered about missing it, especially since we have heard from a number of people that it’s the rip off capital of Asia.
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