Dali, I have arrived!

After a long and tedious ride on the sleeper bus, we arrived in Dali at around 4 am in the morning. We continued to sleep in the bus until 6 am and headed off from there. As usual, our plan was not to stay at Dali for too long. Get to Dali Old City 大理古城 and proceed on to Lijiang 丽江 by night fall. With our huge backpacks, we took the public transport (Bus Route 4 at RMB 1) to the Old City. On the way, the sun rose and revealed a beautiful scenic rural land that we as Singaporeans can never truly experience in Singapore.

Once again, I first mission was to get tickets to Lijiang. We approached this lady who was selling maps on the streets and asked where we could get tickets to Lijiang. She directed us to a nearby Guest House and we got the tickets for RMB 45. This was where we began to plan our separate trips. Lee Tong and Chin Keong had other plans and that evening, we were heading off to different locations.

Dali – a city of old and new

Before exploring the Old City, we decided to head out to the nearby attraction Chong Sheng Si 3 Pagoda 崇圣寺三塔 which cost RMB 52 (No student price unfortuanately.). Take Bus Route 19 at RMB 0.5 to get to the park. The park was beautiful! Without too many people (as it was off season) the place was tranquil and serene. Perfectly peaceful! Coupled with the clear blue sky, the 3 pagodas were mesmerizing. The story behind the 3 pagodas was that Dali had a shape of a dragon geographically. Therefore, they built the pagodas to keep the dragon in place. 1 pagoda was built at the tail and the 3 pagodas here was built to hold the dragon head.

ubsequently, we took a horse carriage back to Dali Old City for RMB 10. The horse was stinky, as horses were. The old man was stinky too, and he kept trying to sell us some package to go see Cang Shan 苍山 and Er Hai 洱海, which we weren’t interested to. Back in the Old City, we started our hunt for FOOD! This lunch was one of the most memorable lunch we had for our trip, not because of the fabulous food, but because of the extremely steep price. We had Rose Omellette and Tree bark (RMB 28) and some other stuff and it amounted to RMB 90 for a simple but not delicious meal. It stunned the 3 of us!

More strolling and walking before we finally decided to head off to the Tian Long Ba Bu Movie Studio 天龙八部影城 to “kill time” as we had like half a day more before our bus departed for Lijiang. (Dali wasn’t as exciting as we would liked it to be.) Now the tickets to the movie studio cost RMB 50, though there will be a lot of travel agents that will try to offer it to you for RMB 45 (without the tickets!) Taking the horse carriage there once again cost RMB 10. We stayed within the studio for over 2 hours, as we slowly combed the place. It was huge, but not too exciting. We were fortunate to have bumped into a stall keeper who sold “jade” and we chatted about Dali’s history, Chinese culture, and travelling around China for over an hour. Definitely learned alot about the local culture from that very nice person.

We then headed back to the Old City for dinner. Let me explain this very unique situation. While walking in the city in the afternoon, we went pass this small little corridor and there were people walking out. I peered in and those guys who looked all fashionable and all said that that place was a must eat! Full from the horrible lunch, we bookmarked that location for dinner. Upon returning there in the evening, we realized that they were closed from the day. Sold Out! So, we never got to eat the very recommended food at that place!

Dinner was eventually at a Marley’s Cafe. Food was western style, and it was good, and cheaper than the one we had for lunch!!!

We eventually headed off to Lijiang and arrived there at 2300 hours. It was a ‘good’ 3 hours bus ride.

We were famished by then!

Lijiang 丽江

We checked into the Lijiang International Hostel 丽江古城国际青年旅舍, which came under the Hostelling International. The room rate for 3 people was RMB 80 for 1 night. Hostel condition was good but there was no heater in the room! Brr!!! The water heater wasn’t too hot either! Brr!!! We also booked a tour that went to Lu Gu Lake 泸沽湖, as per Huijing’s request, for the next 2 days. That cost RMB 110 for the transport only. We then went for our late dinner of Tibetan Hotpot.