2005/1/9: Kunming to Dali

Woke up early in the morning, thinking we'd walk down to the Kunming train station and get tickets (as we found out the night before, impossible to buy tickets on the spot when the train is coming).

Outside, the main Kunming strip (Beijing Lu) is a much different scene than it had been late the previous night. In the day, it's crowded with people milling about in all directions. On the way to the station, we passed the Kunming bus terminal and stopped in to ask about fares to Dali. For a mid-sized bus it was 90 yuan. Mental note: The bus ticket line had about 8 people standing...

the Million Man Line

We walked back to the train station, but only to find that the big empty ticket selling hall was not empty any more ... Now, the main hall in the train station, with 24 different ticket windows, was packed all the way to the far walls with people / in barely organized lines - more of just a massive crowd, something you might find in a disaster movie. Seriously, there were probably about 8000 people in that ticket hall.

We took one look at those lines, spent no amount of serious thought, and quickly abandoned the idea of taking any trains. The friendly bus station [with 8 people in the ticket line] was just a few blocks down Beijing Lu from the train station. Back up to the bus terminal...

Wholesome Corner Food

What a great place we found on a street corner between the Kunming train station and bus terminal. A row of counters billow steam out onto the cold sidewalk. We see steamed buns, hearty red cheeks, clay fired pots with sizzling noodles - we decide to go in and eat.

What a perfect place to huddle over steaming food on a cold morning...

A bamboo steamer of buns (apx 10), with a clay pot of sizzling noodles big enough for 1-2 people came to a total of 8 yuan. The bowl is what we later learn is Mii\ Xian (falling accent on "mii") - a staple recipe throughout Yunnan province and really excellent.

A busy, delicious place to eat!

Cooked to order in a clay pot over fire, Mii Xian (also spelled "guoqiao mixian") is a hearty noodle soup, a combination of long-simmered stock and quickly cooked, fresh ingredients. It's a light broth, thick white noodles, base of ground pork &/ chicken. Freshness comes from crunchy greens that are dropped in at the last minute. Slivers of Chinese sausage give it a great twist. And the whole thing is made when the pickled core vegs (mustard greens, etc) are dropped in just before serving. It's really great. And eating here on this street corner, on a cold morning, with steam pouring out to the mingling crowd outside, it's great...

Bus to Dali, then Old Dali

We got two tickets by bus, Kunming to Dali, 90 yuan each. The bigger Volvo bus was quoted at 104 yuan each but left later in the day.

Slow, bone-jarring saga - This isn't actually a "road"

The ride was grueling, to say the least. China is undergoing construction everywhere, funded by USA's frantic Walmart spending - The cash flows in the form of billions of dollars in trade surplus each month, and the result is new construction everywhere you look in China. Almost the entire length of road from Kunming to Dali is under construction (January, 2005). A completely new highway is being built alongside the old road. So our bus jolted and bounced, slowly, over rocks and dirt, for more than 3 hours. After that, a better road took us the rest of the way to Dali - whole trip was about 6 hours from Kunming.

Almost to Dali, a main bus terminal is the last stop. From there we switch to a local mini bus for the ride into Old Dali proper. That one is 2 yuan. The ride to Old Dali is about an hour - don't worry, you can't miss it. When you're at the old town you'll know it.

Dali Hotel

It was night by the time we hit Dali. The North Face jackets really served us well in the Yunnan winter. We rolled our small luggage down the cobblestone lanes to find a hotel. After looking at a few of the hotels on the main strip, we settled on one and checked in.

The cold Yunnan night air blows chilly dark mountain air down from the forest. Our room was in a separate building from the hotel lobby, and there wasn't really a clear deliniation to the outside - the room itself was big, and cold. No heater, just the tall hot water flask with old cork stopper. Nay, after Thailand, this was "freezing". We huddled in bed with the heater pads.