Dali & Lijiang

After a relaxing night in Kunming we got up early to catch a train to Dali, a former hippie center (leaving it a legacy of lots of of shops selling ukeles and bongos) and ancient town nestled between the Changshan mountain range and the blue waters of Lake Erhai. We arrived at our hostel in the early evening and quickly set out to explore the old town, which was extremely touristy, with chain shops, hipster coffee bars and a faux historic McDonald's. As our budget doesn't stretch to a big Mac, we sought out a Hui Muslim run restaurant were we devoured a deliciously spicy noodle soup, before heading back to our hostel for an early night.

The next day we decided to hire bikes to cycle around Lake Erhai, China's second biggest mountain lake. There were few standout sights, but the cycle route around the lake took us through plenty of pleasant fishing villages, before we cycled back up hill past the old town to Dali's three 1000 year old pagodas, which we chose to admire from afar because of their extortionate £12 entrance fee. After that we returned to the hostel, where we played Oh Hell and drank Baiju, before heading out to what turned out to be a fairly lackluster local bar.

On Thursday morning, nursing some heavy Baiju induced hangovers, we made our way to the foot of the 4000m Changshan mountains, hopping some barbed wire fences to avoid paying another entrance fee. After clambering up deserted forested steps for a couple of hours, we arrived at the Cloudland Path above the trees which afforded great views across town and lake and a break from the relentless flow of Chinese tourists in the old town. Heading along the path we eventually reached the Zhonghe temple, a quiet Buddhist sanctuary with beautiful murals and the otherworldly singing of a female devotee. Me and Theo chose to descend the mountains via chairlift, while Freddie and David went down on foot, resulting in us nearly missing the bus we needed to connect to our train to Lijiang.

We arrived in Lijiang, a town traditionally associated with the Naxi minority which until recently was matrilineal and spent an hour trying to find our well hidden, super cheap hostel, before heading into the incredibly busy old town (which charges an £8 entry fee in daylight hours) for dinner. We stumbled upon a fairly touristy but fun snack market, where we enjoyed delicacies such as exquisite grilled carp from Lake Erhai and Naxi style aubergine filled with mixed veg. After dinner, we went back to the hostel before heading into town, where we went to Muse, a fancy looking club down an escalator where we were pounced on by a group of Chinese rich kids who gave us ridiculous amounts of Johnnie Walker Black Label watered down with tea. Other partiers included diamond chain wearing Chinese gangsters and glamorous women who seemed like they were paid to be there. We quickly encountered the other foreigners in the club, a group of Ukrainians (featuring a Georgian) who had played a gig at the club earlier and were then given free drinks to keep them there as foreigners were such an attraction. After a ridiculous amount of free drink, the club began to die down and we went back to the Ukrainians' hotel where we spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting around a bonfire, before heading to bed stupidly late.

After waking up at around midday, we spent our second day in Lijiang arranging our bus ticket to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, before walking to the Museum of Naxi Dongba Culture, where we learnt about Naxi religious beliefs (a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam) and their intriguing language - the only living one to use hieroglyphics rather than an alphabet. Beside the museum was the Black Dragon park, a green expanse filled with pagodas, temples and clear reflective pools and awash with Chinese tourists, but still fairly enjoyable. Afterwards, to celebrate my birthday we decided to have our first western meal of the trip, but unfortunately the great sounding pizza and burger place in the old town was closed so we had to resort to the world's fanciest Pizza Hut, which served dishes such as Italian tapas and Bacon and Crab Roe pizza. After satisfying our cheese craving, we got an early night, as we knew we had a long day hiking the Tiger Leaping Gorge ahead of us....Read more