Dali Part 2 (2-9)

Saturday morning I went down the street to buy some oranges to add to my breakfast. I found a dried fruit vender and created a mixture of banana chips, pineapple, and cherry tomatoes. I was surprised how delicious the dried tomatoes are. I also bought some almonds. Mixed together they made a great snack to carry with me during the day. Breakfast was included with the room, but it’s a typical Chinese breakfast—tasteless rice porridge. They did give a few slightly spicy, picked vegetables to put in it, which helps, but it’s still not my favorite breakfast. It also included mantou, steamed bread, made by Andy’s father. I like mantou but not with porridge. I took a piece to eat with my trail mix, which worked well.

I planned to go to the ancient town and the Three Pagodas. Andy drove another man and me to the Three Pagodas. It is actually a complex with a huge temple and is called Chongshen Temple and Three Pagodas. It was originally built in the 9^th century but has been rebuilt because it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Since it is the most important temple in the province, many Chinese tour groups were there throughout the day.

The Three Pagodas are near the entrance, and the complex extends way back and up the mountain. I ended out walking around for almost five hours, as I saw everything. 

You can climb up three of the buildings for good views of the complex and city, even all the way to the lake. Each temple or hall contains a different important Buddhist figure. One building has gold-plated arhats. 

Another has a thirteen-faced god. 

One has a god of fortune, which I hadn’t seen in a temple before but encountered fairly often here. 

The pool of nine dragons became a fountain while I was in the building behind it; so I had to go out to see it again.

From the top of the last building, there are good views of the valley, including the city and the lake. 

And good views of the mountains behind the complex.

Weather wasn’t as good as it was on Friday; it was cooler and was windy off and on throughout the day. So I was really glad I’d had my bicycle ride on Friday.

After finishing my time at the temple, I negotiated a taxi price for the ride back to town. Old Dali is a walled city. There are four gates to enter it. After entering West Gate, the first item on my agenda was finding a place to eat. 

Near the gate there were a number of restaurants that have food displayed to be ordered. I tried to order mushrooms and tofu cooked together at one place. They could stir fry the mushrooms, but the tofu could only be fried; so I would have to order two dishes, and they couldn’t make them a small size. When I ordered mushrooms at another place, the woman wrote something on her pad. When I said I can’t read Chinese, she produced an English/Chinese menu, which simplified the process. I ordered what I thought was three kinds of mushrooms stir fried, but it came as mushrooms cooked in broth with tofu. Nevertheless, it was good.

Then I walked down the street, stopping at a small museum, a park, and a temple. I mostly looked at the buildings and found that I’d seen pretty much enough, as they were starting to look the same. 

I learned that Dali is famous for marble and started to notice marble “paintings” on some of the buildings. At the end of the street, I called Andy to pick me up, a nice service he offers.

My original plan was to go up the mountain one day, but that had lost its appeal. The mountain tops were in clouds on Saturday, and I knew I’d have more mountain opportunities in Shaxi and Liang. So I planned a quiet day on Sunday. When I woke up, I thought about taking a boat trip on the lake. At breakfast, Andy asked about my plans. When I mentioned the boat trip, he asked if I wanted a small or big boat. After he described the different trips, I decided on the big boat. He arranged for me to join his parents, since they were going on the big boat that day. We were picked up and driven to the boat, which was definitely big. It is a former five-level cruise ship that has been converted to lake tours. 

The bedrooms are now sitting rooms with comfortable benches, a table, and a TV. A few dishes of snacks were on the table, and tea was provided. The rooms all have special names. All the rooms on our level had names related to the moon. Ours was Elegant Moon Room.

When we boarded the boat, we were given a heart with Erhai written in Chinese to hang around our necks. We were also given coupons.

Andy’s parents took good care of me. His mother linked her arm with mine until we were safely in our room. They walked me around the islands we stopped at and took me to the cultural performance. His father took 55 photos of me—some with his mother and some alone—on my camera and about half that many with the two of us on their camera. It was certainly a Chinese photographing experience.

The tour guide for our group had his wife and son along. The boy is ten years old and spoke a little English with me. A few times others tried to use him as a translator, but, of course, he doesn’t know that much English. But it was fun to interact with him a little.

Half an hour after leaving shore, we went out to have a photo taken. I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do if my new friends hadn’t been taking care of me. Two photos were taken: one alone and one with a woman in traditional Bai clothes. Andy’s mother had her second photo taken with me instead of with the woman. One of the coupons was to claim a free key ring with the photos. You could also purchase the photos. They took care of claiming these later.

After traveling for an hour and a half, we stopped at a very small island. It was packed with people selling skewers of food, mostly fish. 

One interesting item was small birds on a skewer. The island has a very small temple. Other than that, this stop seemed to be about buying food from the local people. We walked in a steady stream of masses of people for fifteen minutes. It was good to be back on the boat.

There were many sea gulls around the island. They knew to fly along the boats because people threw bread for them. We watched them as we approached the island and again after returning to the boat.

Next we went to the cultural performance that had started while we were enjoying the sea gulls. Although we missed the first part, we saw twenty minutes of Bai dances. We put our tickets on the ledge in front of us so we would be given three small cups of tea to sample. When the show was over, Andy’s father had one of the woman stop for a photo with us. His mother said something about fifteen and I agreed. Next thing I knew, I was buying a box of tea for 15 yuan. It has six small boxes that each have a small packet of the three kinds of tea we had sampled.

The next activity was a 40-minute walk around another island. This one was more enjoyable than the first island. It is much larger; so people weren’t in a steady mass walking around. The path is lined with trees most of the way, and there are nice views of the lake on one side. 

On the island is an imperial palace that was our destination. It also has a statue of the Mother Goddess/Kuan Yin. We had time only to look at each briefly and take photos, of course.

After touring the island, we relaxed in our room while the boat headed to shore, arriving half an hour later at 1:30. We were immediately taken to our vans for the return trip. On the way back, we stopped for lunch, which was a surprise for me, as Andy hadn’t mentioned that lunch was included. Eight dishes were quickly prepared, most of which did not have meat (perhaps because I mentioned that I don’t eat meat). It was quite a good meal. Then I was put in a returning van. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Perhaps there was only one van to take all sixteen of us in the group.

Next I took a bus to the ancient town to walk around a bit and have a massage. I’d seen a few massage places when I walked through town after arriving on Thursday and decided that I wanted to have one. I enjoyed walking around taking photos of the buildings for about an hour and a half. I like the ancient towns, but that’s about my limit for enjoying them. Like all the others, this one is full of tourist shops. 

I came to one building you can walk up and enjoyed the view over the city to the lake. 

During my walk, I continued adding to my collection of photos of baby carriers. They are beautifully embroidered and all seem to be different. Then I found a massage place and had a wonderful foot and shoulder massage before returning to the guesthouse.

Monday morning I woke up early to leave Dali. When I looked out the window at 8:00, there was a beautiful sunrise. I thought briefly about rushing down to the lake but decided to continue to enjoy it from my room. When I went downstairs for breakfast at 8:30, Andy’s father was just unlocking the doors; so it was good that I didn’t want to go out earlier. They were having a slow morning after the two busy weeks for the Spring Festival holiday.

After breakfast, Andy drove me to town where I could get the bus to new Dali where I would get a bus to Jianchuan. My time in Dali was over. I think Dali will be a China highlight.