Three Hoosiers in the Far East
Last week, two of my friends from college came to visit during the National Week/Mid-Autumn festival holidays. I had October 1st – 8th off of work, so we decided a few months ago that this would be the best time for them to come visit, despite being the busiest domestic travel week of the year. Currently, American passport holders and people from many other countries can come visit China visa-free for 10 days, and the timer only starts on your first full day in China so if you arrive in the morning, it’s actually more like 11 days.
They flew into Beijing and spent two days there while I was still working, and then on October 1st I met them at the airport in Chengdu, where I live. We spent three days in Chengdu, and then ventured south into Yunnan province, the cities of Dali and Kunming, for 5 more days. In this entry, I’ll share some photos I took and some background on Dali/Yunnan.
I mentioned this in the Chongqing blog, but the first week of October is a massive travel week in China, and at many places like train stations, airports, the metro, ticketed tourist attractions, the crowds can be pretty huge:
(Chengdu East railway station on 10/1)
We were prepared for this but to be honest we didn’t have a terrible time with regard to crowds, outside of a few traffic jams and a long line to ride a cable car in the mountains in Dali.
I’ve already included a lot of Chengdu stuff in previous blog posts, so I’ll just quickly skim some highlights.
The view from our Airbnb in Chengdu city center.
Obligatory trip to People’s Park to drink tea and watch traditional Sichuan opera in a small outdoor theater.
Wenshu Buddhist Monastery in downtown Chengdu.
Asian squat + cigarette. Zeke had truly gone native by this point.
Traditional Sichuan dinner. Kung Pao chicken, Mapo tofu, Twice-cooked pork, veggies. Ate ourselves to death at this place.
…and she’s buying a stairway, to heaven
We’re off to Dali!
A little background on Yunnan province:
Yunnan is in the very southwest of China, bordering Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. It’s physically about the size of Germany and has about 50 million people (~same as Spain/South Korea). In China, ～90% of the 1.4B population are Han Chinese and the remaining 140 million are made up of 55 distinct minority ethnic groups, and Yunnan is known for having 25 of these groups. The villages of Dali are the ancestral homeland of the Bai (白, literally: “white”) ethnic group (pictured below)
Yunnan is thought to be the birthplace of tea and was an important stop on the ancient “Tea-Horse road” that linked trade between Yunnan, Tibet, India, and Nepal.
Most importantly to me, however, is the fact that Yunnan is thought to have the most pleasant climate in all of China. Due to some geographical/topological quirks that are beyond my understanding, Yunnan has mild winters and mild, if not a bit rainy, summers. In general, it stays between 50-80 degrees Fahrenheit all year round, unless you go into the high mountains. I must admit that during some of the steamy July days in Chengdu more than once I found myself thinking “Surely, they must need some English teachers in Yunnan…”
The inner courtyard of our hotel. The place only had 6 rooms, we took up three of them, and two were unoccupied. It was run by a family that lived in an adjacent apartment.
We could go on the roof from our rooms.
Walking around Dali Old Town.
Treating ourselves to some traditional Yunnan food, I don’t remember some of the dishes but there was definitely fish, mushrooms, and homemade plum wine.
Tilapia, pork ribs, fried rice, potatoes and veggies.
Rented bikes from this nice auntie for about $10 a day.
Biking to the lake through farm fields. Saw farmers picking green onions by hand.
Dali is located around a large lake called Erhai. On the south shore is the “new”, modern looking city, and along the west shore are many older looking villages that are more aesthetic and popular for tourists such as ourselves.
The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, 75 and partly cloudy every day. We did all forget that Dali is at about 6,500 feet elevation (1,000 higher than Denver) and thus the sun is much stronger, so after this bike ride we were all a bit pink.
Finished our cycling at the Three Pagodas, a UNESCO world heritage site that was built in the 9th century over 1,000 years ago.
Nighttime from our roof.
Dali is famous for it’s nightlife and music scene, and it was especially lively during the holiday when people from all over the country visit here on vacation. I forgot to take a photo, but just by chance we found ourselves watching a different band that did Rolling Stones and Bill Withers covers in between Chinese songs.
Uncle that runs the hotel would make us noodles every morning for breakfast.
Got up early to take some pictures of the town before everybody woke up. It seems like in Dali, everyone stays up late and sleeps in late.
This mountain that rises to the West over Dali is called Cangshan. Near the highest summit of Cangshan is a mountain pond where, legend has it, the Mongol warlord Kublai Khan and his army washed their horses before conquering Dali and absorbing it into the Yuan imperial dynasty.
This cable car takes you about 60% of the way up Cangshan mountain, where we could then hike for a few hours (on a relatively flat path) to a chair lift that took us the rest of the way to the bottom.
View from Cangshan of part of “new” Dali City.
That’s pretty much all I got. I really enjoyed my time in Dali. It’s absolutely gorgeous, great weather, great food, lots of stuff to do, and just generally a good vibe. I wouldn’t be surprised if I come back here again.
After we tallied up all the expenses at the end of the trip, we each spent about $50 a night on hotels, and about $60 a day on all other expenses combined. I always tell people, once you figure out the flight, the rest isn’t so bad. Hope you enjoyed this one, I’m sorry for the 7-month summer hiatus that I took, and keep an eye out for another installment coming soon. I have a serious backlog of stuff I need to get to.
Best,
Patrick
Some bonus content:
“We believe in nothing, Lebowski… nothing.”
Yum.
Not really sure what this is intended to mean but I think this is fruit juice in a bag.
iShowSpeed, or as Chinese people call him, 甲亢哥 (hyperthyroidism bro)
Pat's Blog 
Leave a comment