Wandering

Before leaving Yangshuo I went on a day trip to Longsheng so that I could witness the worlds most beautiful rice terraces. The word that sums the day up would be “Cloudy”.  I had expected it to be but for $12 I thought what the heck its a ride in the country. A few good pictures came of it, and it was interesting just the same. At the restaurant in the mountains they had Fried Bamboo Rat as a special.

The highlight of the trip was when the bus tourguide (chinese only) woke me up on the way back to Yangshuo and handed me $2 worth of yuan and asked if I could take the public bus the rest of the way ( 2 hours) in broken english of course.  Before I had time to contemplate the situation she motioned that this was my stop. There I went – dropped off in a random city in the dark hoping to take a public bus which is always hairy no matter where you are.  Somehow I made it and had something more to remember the trip by than a postcard. Before leaving Yangshuo I decided to get a traditional chinese massage.  There must have been years of anger and oppression built up in this little lady because she unleashed a world of pain upon my tender body.  The next couple days were used solely for recovery.

Next destination was Kunming to the west which was an easy 18 hour train ride after a couple hour bus ride.  The city itself reminded me of Boston.  It has some hilly streets and yuppie neighborhoods.  I walked around the city twice and went to a couple of discos during the night.  Having not caught my interest I decided to keep moving on.  Dali(Old Town) seemed like it would be a relaxed place to hang for a while so I packed my bags and headed out.  Conveniently enough the guidebook showed that the long distance bus station was only 2 blocks from hotel, which is why I stayed there in the first place.  Turns out that I got to use my blank face and hand waving some more before waiting in line for five of the same number local buses to fill up before I was able to get on and ride 8 km out of town to the real long distance bus station.

Finally made it to Dali and really liked the atmosphere.  There must have been some chinese hippy influence at some point just from the vibe around town.  The hotel I stayed at costs $8 for a private room with an electric blanket.  The cleaning ladies come in everyday and wipe everything down including all my stuff.  For some reason they bring new combs and toothbrushes(packaged) every day.  I’m not sure if they are trying to tell me something or if it is customary?  One thing that is apparently a custom is bringing a new roll of toilet paper to the room every day.  Each hotel that I have stayed in does the same thing,  how much TP can a person use in a day.  I’m still working on my squat toilet technique which may never be perfected.  It’s hard to read the newspaper and hold a cup of coffee when you have to brace against the wall at the same time.

The food in Dali is varied – from fried duck heads to pizza.  I have run the gamut on foods lately which end up costing around $3 for more than one person can eat.  For stabilities sake i’m sticking with rice and sandwiches for a while.   Drinking water comes from the mountain which is 1 km away and by the time it get here there is already a gut twisting gray haze to it.  Without looking too hard I found some public toilets in the area. (see picture below)

Next up was market day in Dali. Nothing brings out the locals better than market day.  There were hundreds of people selling anything and everything.  Seems like the old people don’t shop in stores, so they only come down from the mountains once or twice a week to get their goods.  It was a truly unique experience, since once again I was the only westerner in the crowd.  This turned out to be fine because there was so much going on that they didn’t even care.  This was the first market that I had been to that had booths/tables selling teeth.  They had a box labeled show repair kit which they used to attain exact fit for the customers 🙂 Some people had weird machines hooked up to their tractors that would grind grains and chili’s or whatever else you could put in them.  I got some great deals on socks and random nonessentials.

At last I found a French bakery that sells breads and cheeses with proper coffee so all is well. However I’m off again….

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /