Smith Family Home

     The six-hour bus ride to Dali was mostly on a well-maintained highway that followed broad mountain valleys north-west up to the city of Xiaguan. Despite being only an hour from our destination, the bus driver stopped and literally forced everyone to disembark so he could eat lunch at a roadside restaurant. The official reason for making us get off the bus was to ensure people didn’t steal other passengers’ belongings. The unofficial reason is most likely that the driver gets a kickback for bringing customers to the restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The restaurant looked a bit iffy and most of the other western passengers decided to skip the sit-down food in favor of packaged snacks from a little kiosk. The rain was coming down in buckets and because the building was packed full of people smoking and spitting on the floor, we spent the next half-hour huddling under the roof overhang trying to stay warm and dry. This was to be the only unique bus circumstance on this leg of the trip, but the first of many subsequent bus adventures on other legs. The rainfall, which began the day before, ended up continuing for nearly our entire time in Yunnan. We expected it however because pre-trip planning included a look at the weather charts and we knew July and August were the rainy season. After re-boarding, we uneventfully arrived at the city of Xiaguan from where we caught a cab in the pouring rain to Dali Old Town another twenty minutes further up the road. 

            Dali at one time served as the ancient capital of the Nanzhao Kingdom which was a major independent power in South China. The city is home to the people of the Bai ethnic minority who have their own distinct culture. Dali Old Town is a preserved replica of the ancient walled city and is a fun place to spend an afternoon exploring the streets, canals, and shops. Many of the original buildings have been replaced with new replicas and the streets are pretty crowded with Chinese tour groups, but it was still fun to spend time there despite the commercialization. Cangshan Mountain serves as a fantastic backdrop to the city and the rainy weather with its accompanying cloud formations created a mystical kind of atmosphere. The locals are pretty crafty in drumming up business in Dali. One man approached us and, after looking at all of our shoes, announced that Steven’s running shoes were in poor repair and needed mending. He took Steven over to his street-side bench and proceeded to re-sew the soles which were indeed starting to peel a little. He glued them properly, waterproofed the bottoms, and finally cleaned them off so that they looked presentable again. The price for all this service? About sixty cents. Our best find in the city was Kaiyi’s Kitchen which serves up fantastic food—so good that we ate almost every meal there for the next two days. 

            On our second day in town, while having breakfast in our booth next to the open window at Kaiyi’s, we were approached by a kind-looking man who asked us if we would be interested in going on a tour around Erhai Lake (China’s 7^th largest freshwater lake). We questioned him a bit and decided it looked legit enough to go. It was a great decision because Mr. Zhao (our guide) provided a mini-van for the day and drove us to some wonderful hidden treasures off the beaten path and well away from the tourist crowds. We drove around the entire circumference of the lake in the course of the day and really learned a lot about this little corner of Yunnan. Mr. Zhao even took us to his home—a traditional Bai style courtyard house—for lunch in his village on the opposite side of the lake from Dali. During the day we saw the famous ‘Three Pagodas,’ beautiful lake scenery, two local village temples, a batik artisan’s home and shop (our choice to go), a market town, and a Bai ethnic village and show. The full-day tour cost a mere 250 RMB—we were so pleased with the experience we gave him a 50 RMB tip. We’ve got his card, so if anyone else wants to visit Dali you can call him and arrange a similar service.

     The three-hour bus ride to Lijiang through the mountains was beautiful—if also a little scary in a few places. The road runs alongside steep cliffs offering superb views of green valleys, terraced corn fields, and isolated mountain villages. What concerned me was the concrete safety barriers didn’t look nearly high enough or sturdy enough to keep us from plunging over the side if the driver momentarily lost his focus. We passed places where the barriers looked like they had crumbled under the impact of some previous car accident which supported my worrisome observation. Fortunately the driver was reasonably cautious and we arrived safe and sound early in the afternoon. 

            Lijiang is a fantastically scenic city which has been well-preserved high in a beautiful mountain valley in the northern part of Yunnan. The city is home to several ethnic minorities, the most famous of which is the Naxi—who still largely follow their matriarchal traditions. The Old Town is beautifully preserved and/or restored. Yes, it is very commercial and tourists are everywhere, but the town is also big enough to easily escape the crowds and get lost in the maze of alleys and canals which make it so unique. Our hotel was in the Old Town and in a great location from which to explore the city.  

            Our second day began in the darkness at 0500 in order to hike up Lion Hill on the west side of the city with the hope of catching the sunrise views of the foggy city streets. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. The rain had continued, and while the rooftop views were pretty, the overcast skies hid the sunrise from view. The good news was that because we were awake so early, we had the Looking at the Past Pavilion and surrounding garden all to ourselves. After breakfast, we made our way to Black Dragon Pool and explored the beautiful sights there. We then hiked most of the way to the top of Elephant Hill and took in the scenery of the Old Town. We left off trying new local food that evening and settled for a big bucket of KFC chicken for dinner, followed by some more strolling in the streets and souvenir shopping. Lijiang really comes alive at night with the homes and stores all lit up with red lanterns. Some of the restaurants engage in singing competitions wherein the female workers from one sing Naxi songs as loudly as they can from the rooftops. The competing restaurant workers enlist customers’ help to sing back even louder. It makes for a really festive atmosphere.  

            Lijiang’s natural scenery is dominated by towering Jade Dragon Snow Mountain to the north of the city. On top of the mountain is the southern-most glacier in the Northern Hemisphere—reachable by cable-car. This was our adventure for the third day in town. We arranged a driver to take us for the hour-long drive to the mountain in the morning. At the chairlift ticket office, we got parkas for the kids and invested in a bottle of oxygen just in case we needed it because we would be climbing higher than 15,000 feet. As we live at sea-level in Shanghai we thought it would be prudent to be prepared. The engineering required to build that cable lift was impressive because we were carried swiftly up past amazingly steep cliffs and over craggy gorges that took our collective breath away. At the top of the mountain is a long walkway offering spectacular views of the glacier. It was very cold and rainy at the top and the elevation made climbing the stairs a real strain. The kids were soon complaining of exhaustion and together they decided they couldn’t go any further. We left them huddling on a bench under an umbrella with the bottle of oxygen while Michelle and I climbed up another few hundred feet to quickly take some more pictures before coming back. When we got back to the kids, Sabrina was complaining of a bad headache so we broke out the oxygen and she soon felt better. After some hot chocolate in the chairlift building and one more family picture, we came back down the mountain.
          Our departure flight for Chengdu wasn’t until late in the evening of day four and so we had another full day to explore the city. Michelle went out by herself and came across an interesting local butcher market where the animals could be purchased live and butchered to order. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see that the offerings included canine cuisine. The weather had been beautiful in the morning with blue skies peaking out intermittently from behind the clouds. This all changed in the evening just when we needed to depart. The worst rainfall we (and the locals) had ever seen began falling and didn’t let up for some three hours. The canals in the streets—normally three or four feet deep with only a foot or so of water in the bottom—were soon overflowing. It got to the point where it was no longer possible to tell where the canals ended and where the streets began. It was in this weather that we had to haul our luggage out of the Old Town to our taxi several hundred yards away. The driver was good enough to help out by carrying Sabrina on his back through the knee-deep rushing muddy water. The drive to Lijiang Airport took some 90 minutes of careful navigation through flooding streets. Our shoes and socks were soaking wet of course, so as we waited in the terminal for our flight (at this point only delayed), Michelle went and bought us all sandals to wear so our shoes could begin drying out. After a four hour wait, the word came down that the flight was cancelled due to weather. China Airlines was really good about putting us up overnight free of charge in a nearby hotel. Fortunately, we had a little wiggle-room in the itinerary for Chengdu which meant that we hadn’t missed much when we arrived early in the afternoon of the following day.