Dali, Lijiang & Chengdu
We're still alive! China seems to have the worst internet connections in the world so I haven't been able to update my blog at all. I've tried a number of times but it seems that it's only possible to open one window at a time in China, so viewing hotmail, facebook and blogger all at once is not possible.
We took the overnight train to Dali on Sunday and the trip wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The cabins were quite small and since it was a double decker train, we had no overhead storage so had to dump all our luggage in between the bunks. The train didn't come until 10 pm so we headed to bed as soon as we got on the train. Thankfully each train car had one western toilet and one squat toilet so I always made sure to stand in line for the western toilet. The bunks were just as hard as every other bed in China but I think we were all so tired that we slept pretty well. We arrived in Dali around 7 pm, checked into our hotel and headed out for breakfast. Our hotel was a huge complex of different buildings, with no elevators, so it involved lots of grunting to get my suitcase to our room. (One of these days I will learn how to pack less stuff in my pack!) We went for breakfast at a nearby hostel which had a great breakfast. I still cannot bring myself to eat noodles and rice for breakfast so every time I see western type food, I go crazy. This place had yogurt, granola and fruit as well as eggs and some sort of potato pancake. Haven't been able to find a good cup of coffee in China yet, except for Starbucks, and even the tea looks strange to me. I've been using up our supply of granola bars and fruit bars for breakfast as the further we get into China, the less recognizable breakfast seems to be. (Ruth, don't worry, we haven't had to hit up your box of Harvest Crunch just yet! ;-)
After a wonderful breakfast I headed back to our room to catch up on my sleep, while Jonathan wandered around town snapping pictures. Dali is very picturesque and has many little shops selling a variety of items. We spent the afternoon looking around the shops and picked up some items for our families. All the shops tried to convince us that their goods were homemade but it's hard to believe them when all the shops carry identical items. The other thing that I found rather annoying was when I was looking at clothes and the shop keeper would bring out a different size for me to try on. They always brought out XL items! I know the Chinese people are tiny but I'm not that big! Our most interesting find of the day was a man making animals out of caramelized sugar or some sort of honey. He had a charge with different animals on it and you could choose one and he would take the hot liquid, make a shape on his board and when it cooled he would hand it to you on a giant stick for you to eat. Very tasty!
In the evening we all got together at a Tibetan restaurant to celebrate Gareth and Liz's first anniversary. Alex had arranged a huge feast for us which included sweets and a cake. Since Liz is a vegetarian there was no meat in the meal but it included lots of different dishes - deep fried banana, Tibetan hot pot, spring rolls, potato cakes, a cold cucumber dish, a tomato, garlic and greens dish and curried vegetables and noodles.
On Monday we left Dali and took a bus to Lijiang which was about a 4 hour drive. We had lunch as soon as we arrived and tried out the local speciality which is called Babba. It's a type of flaky pastry which is about the shape and size of a small pizza. We had a sweet one with honey which is now my favourite Chinese food. After lunch we wandered around Lijiang for a bit but because it was cold and very rainy it was hard to enjoy the town. Jonathan had a jacket that repelled the rain but I bought a giant blue rain coat (only 10 Yuan) which was definitely worth the money. Lijiang was full of tourists, mostly Chinese, so it was hard to move through the narrow streets. Apparently the old town of Lijiang is considered a World Heritage Site and no one can build or repair any of the houses or shops without permission. There is quite a maze of streets there but most of them have a little street flowing through them so Alex told us that if we were to get lost just to follow the water upstream and that would take us back to the entrance of the old town. For someone like me, who has no sense of direction, it was very good advice! In the evening some of the group headed out to hear the Naixi orchestra play, but we decided the cost wasn't worth it, so we stayed in our hotel, did some reading and headed to bed early.
On Tuesday we all met around 8:30 am, rented bikes and cycled to Baisha, a small town close to Lijiang. The biking wasn't hard as the roads were all paved, but we had the most uncomfortable bikes in the entire world. I was actually glad when my butt went numb so I couldn't feel the discomfort any more. The bike ride took about an hour, but we were going at a very slow pace, stopping to take water and picture breaks. We wandered around Baisha for just over an hour, observing the rural way of life and taking pictures. We had lunch before we left and enjoyed a Naixi sandwich - some sort of pita bread, tomatoes, potato pancake and a strange smelling cheese. (Goat, perhaps?) Also had some steamed dumplings, which are usually guaranteed to be good no matter where you are in the country. Jonathan, Gareth, Liz and I headed back before the rest of the group and the ride back only took us 30 min or so. Once we arrived back in Lijiang we headed to a nearby park and wandered around for a bit. Gareth and Liz decided to do some hiking in the park but we headed back to the market for another look around. We all meet for supper around 6 pm and I enjoyed another honey Babba along with fruit, yogurt and granola. Our flight to Chengdu left at 10 pm so we spent the evening in the airport. We arrived last night in Chengdu around 11:30, all quite tired and ready to crash.
Before we arrived in Chengdu, Jonathan noticed that the women's FIFA soccer was being played here in Chengdu and he was hoping to get tickets. When we arrived at our hotel last night he checked out the schedule but it appeared that the soccer games had ended the day before we arrived. He was quite disappointed, but when we checked the schedule early this morning it seems that we had our dates mixed up and there was actually a game today between Canada and Australia. Jonathan immediately booked tickets for tonight at 5 pm and we spent part of the morning trying to get the one Canada shirt I brought with me, clean in time for the game. There was a laundry mat next to our hotel but when I brought the shirt over they said it wouldn't be ready until 5. After many hand signals the staff at the laundry mat called over some one from the hotel who could speak English and who also happened to be a FIFA representative.
I wasn't feeling well this morning so I went back to bed which Jonathan checked out the stadium, which is actually only a 10 minute walk from out hotel. Some of the teams are staying at our hotel so there is security on every floor. Sadly our seats were in the nosebleed section but Jonathan was hoping that we could move down as the stadium holds 30,000 people and he doubted that it would be full.
We left our hotel around 4 this afternoon to go to the game but we were met with a crowd outside the gate and it seemed that nobody was getting through the gates. According to the FIFA volunteers who spoke English, the game was delayed for a day because of a typhoon in Shanghai. Since the game in Shanghai was delayed they delayed all of the other games as well. We stuck around for a bit trying to see what the situation was and when the next game would be and met a fellow Canadian from Montreal in the process. She was friends with one of the team members and said that as of 1 this afternoon the team hadn't heard that it was cancelled so I guess this was a last minute decision. While we were talking an English speaking news team came over and interviewed us! They wanted to know what we thought of the game being delayed and what information we had been given. We also had some Chinese people taking pictures of us in our red and white gear! Some of the officials finally brought out a sign saying the game would be tomorrow at 5 pm and then the police came out and started to disperse the crowd. We met some Australian's who had come to the game as well and since they were flying to Nepal tomorrow they wanted to get rid of their tickets. They offered us their tickets, which were in a better area than ours, so we glady took them. (We noticed that they only paid 60 Yuan for theirs, while ours had cost us 150 Yuan!) We offered them money for them, but they said they were leaving China so they didn't want it. When we got back to our hotel we told the front desk that the game had been delayed so they gave us our money back! Our group is supposed to head to Leshan tomorrow to see a giant buddha so we're not sure if we'll make it back in time. (It takes 2.5 hours to get to the site) We hoping that if we can convince the 6 Aussies that they should come to the game with us everyone will want to come back to the hotel early =)
We'll be in Chengdu until Friday afternoon and then we'll be boarding our Yangtze River cruise for a couple of days. The weather here is not as hot as at the beginning of our tour but the city is quite smoggy. We're heading out to see the opera tonight and then tomorrow will be a full day trip to Leshan to see the giant buddha.
We took the overnight train to Dali on Sunday and the trip wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The cabins were quite small and since it was a double decker train, we had no overhead storage so had to dump all our luggage in between the bunks. The train didn't come until 10 pm so we headed to bed as soon as we got on the train. Thankfully each train car had one western toilet and one squat toilet so I always made sure to stand in line for the western toilet. The bunks were just as hard as every other bed in China but I think we were all so tired that we slept pretty well. We arrived in Dali around 7 pm, checked into our hotel and headed out for breakfast. Our hotel was a huge complex of different buildings, with no elevators, so it involved lots of grunting to get my suitcase to our room. (One of these days I will learn how to pack less stuff in my pack!) We went for breakfast at a nearby hostel which had a great breakfast. I still cannot bring myself to eat noodles and rice for breakfast so every time I see western type food, I go crazy. This place had yogurt, granola and fruit as well as eggs and some sort of potato pancake. Haven't been able to find a good cup of coffee in China yet, except for Starbucks, and even the tea looks strange to me. I've been using up our supply of granola bars and fruit bars for breakfast as the further we get into China, the less recognizable breakfast seems to be. (Ruth, don't worry, we haven't had to hit up your box of Harvest Crunch just yet! ;-)
After a wonderful breakfast I headed back to our room to catch up on my sleep, while Jonathan wandered around town snapping pictures. Dali is very picturesque and has many little shops selling a variety of items. We spent the afternoon looking around the shops and picked up some items for our families. All the shops tried to convince us that their goods were homemade but it's hard to believe them when all the shops carry identical items. The other thing that I found rather annoying was when I was looking at clothes and the shop keeper would bring out a different size for me to try on. They always brought out XL items! I know the Chinese people are tiny but I'm not that big! Our most interesting find of the day was a man making animals out of caramelized sugar or some sort of honey. He had a charge with different animals on it and you could choose one and he would take the hot liquid, make a shape on his board and when it cooled he would hand it to you on a giant stick for you to eat. Very tasty!
In the evening we all got together at a Tibetan restaurant to celebrate Gareth and Liz's first anniversary. Alex had arranged a huge feast for us which included sweets and a cake. Since Liz is a vegetarian there was no meat in the meal but it included lots of different dishes - deep fried banana, Tibetan hot pot, spring rolls, potato cakes, a cold cucumber dish, a tomato, garlic and greens dish and curried vegetables and noodles.
On Monday we left Dali and took a bus to Lijiang which was about a 4 hour drive. We had lunch as soon as we arrived and tried out the local speciality which is called Babba. It's a type of flaky pastry which is about the shape and size of a small pizza. We had a sweet one with honey which is now my favourite Chinese food. After lunch we wandered around Lijiang for a bit but because it was cold and very rainy it was hard to enjoy the town. Jonathan had a jacket that repelled the rain but I bought a giant blue rain coat (only 10 Yuan) which was definitely worth the money. Lijiang was full of tourists, mostly Chinese, so it was hard to move through the narrow streets. Apparently the old town of Lijiang is considered a World Heritage Site and no one can build or repair any of the houses or shops without permission. There is quite a maze of streets there but most of them have a little street flowing through them so Alex told us that if we were to get lost just to follow the water upstream and that would take us back to the entrance of the old town. For someone like me, who has no sense of direction, it was very good advice! In the evening some of the group headed out to hear the Naixi orchestra play, but we decided the cost wasn't worth it, so we stayed in our hotel, did some reading and headed to bed early.
On Tuesday we all met around 8:30 am, rented bikes and cycled to Baisha, a small town close to Lijiang. The biking wasn't hard as the roads were all paved, but we had the most uncomfortable bikes in the entire world. I was actually glad when my butt went numb so I couldn't feel the discomfort any more. The bike ride took about an hour, but we were going at a very slow pace, stopping to take water and picture breaks. We wandered around Baisha for just over an hour, observing the rural way of life and taking pictures. We had lunch before we left and enjoyed a Naixi sandwich - some sort of pita bread, tomatoes, potato pancake and a strange smelling cheese. (Goat, perhaps?) Also had some steamed dumplings, which are usually guaranteed to be good no matter where you are in the country. Jonathan, Gareth, Liz and I headed back before the rest of the group and the ride back only took us 30 min or so. Once we arrived back in Lijiang we headed to a nearby park and wandered around for a bit. Gareth and Liz decided to do some hiking in the park but we headed back to the market for another look around. We all meet for supper around 6 pm and I enjoyed another honey Babba along with fruit, yogurt and granola. Our flight to Chengdu left at 10 pm so we spent the evening in the airport. We arrived last night in Chengdu around 11:30, all quite tired and ready to crash.
Before we arrived in Chengdu, Jonathan noticed that the women's FIFA soccer was being played here in Chengdu and he was hoping to get tickets. When we arrived at our hotel last night he checked out the schedule but it appeared that the soccer games had ended the day before we arrived. He was quite disappointed, but when we checked the schedule early this morning it seems that we had our dates mixed up and there was actually a game today between Canada and Australia. Jonathan immediately booked tickets for tonight at 5 pm and we spent part of the morning trying to get the one Canada shirt I brought with me, clean in time for the game. There was a laundry mat next to our hotel but when I brought the shirt over they said it wouldn't be ready until 5. After many hand signals the staff at the laundry mat called over some one from the hotel who could speak English and who also happened to be a FIFA representative.
I wasn't feeling well this morning so I went back to bed which Jonathan checked out the stadium, which is actually only a 10 minute walk from out hotel. Some of the teams are staying at our hotel so there is security on every floor. Sadly our seats were in the nosebleed section but Jonathan was hoping that we could move down as the stadium holds 30,000 people and he doubted that it would be full.
We left our hotel around 4 this afternoon to go to the game but we were met with a crowd outside the gate and it seemed that nobody was getting through the gates. According to the FIFA volunteers who spoke English, the game was delayed for a day because of a typhoon in Shanghai. Since the game in Shanghai was delayed they delayed all of the other games as well. We stuck around for a bit trying to see what the situation was and when the next game would be and met a fellow Canadian from Montreal in the process. She was friends with one of the team members and said that as of 1 this afternoon the team hadn't heard that it was cancelled so I guess this was a last minute decision. While we were talking an English speaking news team came over and interviewed us! They wanted to know what we thought of the game being delayed and what information we had been given. We also had some Chinese people taking pictures of us in our red and white gear! Some of the officials finally brought out a sign saying the game would be tomorrow at 5 pm and then the police came out and started to disperse the crowd. We met some Australian's who had come to the game as well and since they were flying to Nepal tomorrow they wanted to get rid of their tickets. They offered us their tickets, which were in a better area than ours, so we glady took them. (We noticed that they only paid 60 Yuan for theirs, while ours had cost us 150 Yuan!) We offered them money for them, but they said they were leaving China so they didn't want it. When we got back to our hotel we told the front desk that the game had been delayed so they gave us our money back! Our group is supposed to head to Leshan tomorrow to see a giant buddha so we're not sure if we'll make it back in time. (It takes 2.5 hours to get to the site) We hoping that if we can convince the 6 Aussies that they should come to the game with us everyone will want to come back to the hotel early =)
We'll be in Chengdu until Friday afternoon and then we'll be boarding our Yangtze River cruise for a couple of days. The weather here is not as hot as at the beginning of our tour but the city is quite smoggy. We're heading out to see the opera tonight and then tomorrow will be a full day trip to Leshan to see the giant buddha.
posted by The Patterson Pair at 5:26 AM
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