This was a sleeper bus with rows of bunk beds in place of seats, so despite my best intentions, I slept a great deal of the day away. Otherwise, the trip was spent looking out at passing rice paddies and rugged green hills, listening to music, not communicationg with people (I was once again the only foreigner on the bus), and stopping for meal and bathroom breaks with of course the occasional obligatory Chinese cigarette (because despite how you feel about smoking, every Chinese man wants to offer a cigarette to the only white guy on the bus). I learned to deal with the incessant spitting and loud cell phone talking, and finally, at about 1:00 the next morning, I arrived in the new town of Dali, which is about 30 minutes from the more picturesque old town.
Again gesturing wildly, I managed to employ a taxi driver to the old city for 50 yuan and have him drop me off inside the walls of the ancient city. And I know what my esteemed readers must be thinking now: "But Brett, how would you find a place to stay upon arriving in a foreign town at 2:00 in the morning?" And that's exactly what I was thinking to myself. I wandered around the deserted old town following the map in my trust Lonely Planet and knocking on the gates of every hostel, guesthouse, and hotel in town, but to no avail. No one was answering. I began to scout around for a dark alley to crash in until daybreak.
Finally at about 2:45 a.m., I chanced upon the only joint in town that seemed to be open still, the westerner-run Bad Monkey Bar. My bag in tow, I entered, sat down at an empty table and figured I would just drink until closing time and then wander into an alley. I skillfully pleaded with one of the bartenders as to whether he knew of a place in town that would still be open at this hour. He gave me the name of a place across town to try but I didn't hold much hope; I ordered another beer. Eventually a Kiwi girl and an Aussie guy that were working the bar, seeing that I looked destitute and demoralized, invited me over to play drinking games which was great fun, and by and by I gained their trust and sympathy. They generously offered to put me up for the night in an extra bed at their apartment. Trust the universe and it will oblige.
With a nasty headache the next morning, I headed over to the Jade Roo hostel at the advice of one of my bartender hosts and got a bed, then proceeded to watch BBC World News for a couple hours as I recovered from the previous night. The rest of the day was spent wandering the streets of this ancient but over-touristed town. The tourism here is different from SE Asia though, as it is mainly composed of Chinese nationals rather than foreigners. I enjoyed the sense of being in China as it was centuries ago, until I looked around at all the tourists and realized that it was only manufactured authenticity.
The next day I felt a bit more adventurous and decided to trek up into the 4,000 meter peaks rising just west of town. I walked the 1 km to the chairlift which takes you to a minor temple on the mountain at 2,000 meters, ascended, then began my hike from there. I went rogue and ignored the signs telling me to stay on the paved tourist path. I had heard that there was a trail leading all the way to the 13,000 foot summit of the mountain and I wanted to see how far I could get in that direction. I managed to find the rough trail heading steeply up the pine forested slopes using my eagle scout skills, then followed it.
I climbed higher and higher and gained inmpressive views of the snow dusted peaks. As I continued along however, seeing not a soul, the trail became increasingly overgrown until I was bushwhacking through a combination of pine boughs, young growth bamboo, ferns, and stinging nettles. I turned back down, but only after traversing to a place where I gained one last view of the still distant peaks from perhaps 3,000 meters.
Back in town, I followed a variation of that old adage, "When in tourist town, do as the tourtists do," and did a bit of shopping. After a mundane evening, I booked a ticket on to the next tourist town, Lijiang, for the next morning.
On April 6 I boarded another bus for the "ancient" town of Lijiang (which in fact has been laregly reconstructed). The road was rough but relatively brief at only four hours, and after a short taxi ride from the Lijiang bus station I began wandering the maze of cobblestone streets, shops, and the gauntlet of Chinese tourists that is the ancient city, in search of the renown Mama Naxi Guesthouse. As there seems to be no logic to the planning of this city, I was wandering for at least an hour before a guardian angel appeared in the form of a german girl named Flor. "Are you looking for Mama Naxi's?" she inquired, already knowing the answer. She led me there and then disappeared, never to be seen again.
The Mama Naxi GH is named after the owner and main force behind the hostel, who, as her name suggests, is a member of the Naxi ethnic group that is native to this region of China. It is a quaint wooden structure with many rooms and dorms. I checked into a room and was told to be back for the family-style dinner (and I'm ecstatic that I listened to that advice, for it began a beautiful chain of events, each of which might not have happened were I not there for that delicious dinner). At the dinner that evening, I met three fellow travelers whom I befirended for a 24-hour period: A Dutch girl, a Swiss guy, and a Canadian guy.
Those 24 hours were mainly uneventful, but to sum it up, the four of us shared some drinks on the town that night and went to bed, then the next day I did some shopping (Chinese antique stores are superb), ate dinner again, whereupon I met the people with whom I would share the most amazing experiences of this trip. These people, in no particular order, were Mary, a 69 year-old Irish lady traveling independently, Nadya, a sweet and soft-spoken Russian girl, and my fellow yankee Sasha.
And this is the act break.
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