Yunnan Part Two: Lijiang and Dali.

Part Two:

I awoke early and tucked into a full English breakfast since I was pretty sure I wouldn’t eat again until I got home that night. I rented a mountain bike and pushed off in the direction of Baisha by 8am. The day was warm and after sometime the buildings began to thin out and look less like a city and more like a country town. After nearly an hour of peddling I found myself cycling along winding roads that passed through paddocks filled with blooming yellow flowers. I felt the sun beating down on my face and heard birds chirping as they flew overhead. In the distance I could see the white peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain looming above the horizon. It really was utterly idyllic.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in August

After riding for another half an hour I arrived in the ancient town of Baisha. Early in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) the ancestors of the Mu clan began to settle and build homes, temples and roads in what is now known as Baisha. I instantly fell in love with the place. It was in complete contrast to Lijiang, with quiet and empty streets surrounded by original dilapidated buildings, not yet overrun with hordes of tourists and commercialization. The town still retains its ethnic character and was a breath of fresh air after the overcrowded and overdeveloped Old Town of Lijiang.

Toward the end of Baisha Old Street, there is a large cluster of temples that were built in the Yongle era (1402-1424) of the Ming Dynasty. This area is famous for its ancient frescoes, the most famous of which are known as Baisha Mural of the Dabaoji Palace and the Liuli Dian Temple. The number of murals in this area used to exceed 200, however hundreds of years of neglect means that there are now only 55 pieces left in good condition. The frescoes themselves are a diverse representation of Chinese religious insignia. Baisha is located close to the Tibetan border and subsequently has taken on many Tibetan religious practices. This blend of Tibetan Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and Daoist art is also heavily influenced by the cultural practices of the local Naxi inhabitants. 

I parked my bike in the shade of a large willow tree and headed into Dabaoji Palace where several of the best Lijiang Murals are stored and kept on display. The Palace itself was more like a standard Chinese temple, with several small buildings sprinkled throughout traditional gardens. Unlike most well-kept and heavily manicured gardens I have been in throughout China, Dabaoji seemed almost wild and untamed. Its grassy areas had not seen a lawn mower in sometime, the tree branches were heavy with leaves and bowing down as if to sweep the ground, and everywhere I walked I saw tiny flowers trying their hardest to push their way up and out through the stones laid on the ground, trying to reach the sun. With hardly any other visitors within the Palace walls the place felt entirely serene.

After wandering through several buildings, holding numerous glass displays with ancient artefact labelled with terrible Chinglish, I finally came upon a room where I found my first fresco. Despite the room being dimly lit and the amount of damage to the murals it was still an amazing view to behold. The frescoes were large, roughly two metres tall and three metres wide, covering three walls. They now had many black areas which were once brightly coloured, but have oxidized over the years, and have not yet been restored. Even with hundreds of years of degradation it is still easy to make out their compositions. On each fresco there are deities, Bodhisattvas, monks, goddesses, and other celestials, all pulled from the areas various religious influences. I stood before them for a long time imagining how awe inspiring they would have been when freshly painted and gilded.

Baisha Mural

After a couple of hours of leisurely strolling in and out of the temples, I found a large cordoned off garden in one far corner and took the opportunity to sneak in and sit in complete solitude. Compared to the previous day in Lijiang, Baisha was very quiet and Dabaoji was virtually empty, I had passed only a handful of people the whole time I was there. I sat myself down at the base of a statue and enjoyed the isolation. I could hear birds tweeting, the swaying of the tree branches as the wind began to pick up and virtually nothing else. I spent nearly an hour just sitting quietly, enjoying being outdoors, but becoming increasingly worried about what was happening to the sky.

Grey clouds were rolling in, the kind of grey that portends doom, and I began to feel the occasional drop of rain on my face. With sadness in my heart I picked myself up and decided to try and ride back to Lijiang before the skies opened right up and poured on me.

I sped my way down the main street and headed out into the countryside again when the rain truly began to sheet down. Despite feeling like a drowned rat, the summer rain felt great as it beat down upon my face, and I could feel myself grinning like the Cheshire cat as I raced through the storm. The beauty and peacefulness of this place had left me feeling recharged again and my soul was smiling. Up ahead I could see a break in the rain and I flew down the road in an effort to chase it down.

I got back to the hostel at around 4pm and decided to treat myself to a tasty beer. Nearly four hours of mountain biking had taken it right out of me, so I sat myself down on the balcony overlooking the lake, and gulped down my beer while considering how very hungry I had become. My stomach suddenly started churning and making noises, but not out of hunger, it felt much more sinister. I finished the dregs of my beer and decided a nap was in order. Perhaps I had overexerted myself and needed more of a rest before eating?

As it turned out that was not the case. Starting around two hours later I began to experience some of the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. I spent my remaining two days in Lijiang in my hostel room, moving from bed to bathroom in frequent and rapid succession. Soon I was due to check out and make my way to Dali, a two hour train ride away, and I was becoming increasingly unsure of how successful this trip would be.

The following day I hopped on a bus, a bus I was lead to believe would take me to the train station, and headed on my way. After an hour on the bus things were beginning to not look or feel right. It felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere and had begun to loop back around the way we came. I was certain we had not passed the train station and there were no more passengers left on the bus. In a moment of panic I jumped up and asked the driver if the train would go to the train station. He looked at me like I was mental and replied in the negative, so with half an hour to go before my train left, I jumped off the bus and immediately regretted it.

The sun was beating down and as I looked around me I realised I had made a terrible mistake. I was in the middle of a street that was devoid of people and more importantly, completely devoid of taxis. In my head I was going to immediately jump in a cab and be rushed to the train station thus solving all my problems. I felt queasy, dizzy and very tired and there was an increasing level of panic building in me. The ticket I had purchased that would take me from Lijiang to Dali was one of the few left available when I had bought it and that was 6 days earlier. If I missed this train I would be stuck in Yunnan for who knows how much longer.

I looked around me, quietly swearing at myself for being so careless, mentally weighing up my options. Several large, darkly tinted vans drove past me while I was standing there and I considered the possibility of hailing one to the side of the road and begging for a lift. An internal voice of reason, who sounds suspiciously like my mother, told me this was not the best idea for a single woman travelling alone and I gave up on that idea. Minutes were ticking by and my stomach was cramping again and I knew I needed to find both the station and a bathroom very quickly.

Before long I spied a young Chinese girl pull up across the road on an ebike. I saw my opportunity and struggled with my big backpack and slightly smaller carry bag over to where she had parked. I waited a few moments while she went into a small corner shop. As she came out the look on her face was priceless and I could almost hear her inner dialogue… “Why on earth is there a sickly, sweaty looking foreigner standing beside my bike?”. I quickly explained to her in awful broken Chinese that I was terribly lost and in desperate need to getting to the train station. Using the power of mime and more bad Chinese I begged her to dink me to the station in exchange for as much money as she wanted. Who could pass up such a deal? She certainly did not. Moments later I was squished onto the back of the bike holding on for dear life, doing my best to supress my nausea, praying there wherever we were was not so far from where I needed to be.

Sure enough, with 15 minutes to spare, we arrived at the train station. I spent the next five minutes struggling to give my money to the sweet girl who drove me there who told me she was happy to do it for free. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude at the kindness of this stranger that I couldn’t bear to leave her with nothing, so I shoved a hundred kuai in her pocket and tried to run away, not an easy task when you are exhausted and heavily weighed down. She chased me up the path to the station and I was sure she was going to try to give me my money back but then I saw she was thrusting her phone at me and asking for a photo. And so it is that somewhere out there is a sweet Yunnanese girl showing her friends a picture of her and a clammy, pasty waigouren, no doubt laughing at the silly events that happened to her that day.

I boarded the train and I lay down across my bench seat in the foetal position in an effort to discourage my increasingly painful abdominal cramps. Soon a lovely young woman joined my cart and sat opposite me. We struck up some polite conversation and she began offering me some delicious looking fruit, but even though I had not eaten now in 48 hours I did not feel brave enough to eat anything. I politely declined, telling her I was unwell and she quickly agreed while telling me I looked like I was dying. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I felt like I was.

Soon, though not soon enough, we arrived in Dali New City. I jumped in the nearest taxi and paid too much to be taken to my new residence for the next six nights, Five Elements Hostel, located 13 kilometres away in the Old City. Not unsurprisingly the woman behind the counter told me yet again that I looked awful and proceeded to check me in. I went straight to my room and began to familiarise myself with my bed and the bathroom. I went to sleep that evening hoping that after 72 hours of this, everything would begin to improve.

Sadly it did not. I spent my first two days in Dali alternating between lying in my bed and sitting outside in the hanging chair. I was still unable to successfully eat anything without bringing it back up, so I lacked the energy to do anything other than sleep, read or watch the many episodes of Community I had the good sense to load onto my iPad before I began my trip. Despite the pain I was in, this time I spent in the hostel was quite nice. Five Elements was a peacefully quiet hostel, and had a large garden I was able to privately writhe in pain in, while sitting in the warm sun.  By this point I was four days into not eating and only drinking Hydralite. I was still convinced that this would pass and just hoped it would be sooner rather than later.

After a while I began to realise that unless something changed, I was not going to get to see any of Dali. I decide the next day I would get up, head out and explore the town and just take it really easy… and not eat anything before I went! I was also hoping to find a chemist who might be able to give me some for my terrible tummy.

It was a successful plan. I slowly meandered my way through the beautifully cobbled streets of Dali, under the clear blue sky, enjoying the warm summer breeze which was helping to cool my hot, clammy forehead. Dali Old City was built during Ming Dynasty (1368–1398) and because of the large distance between the old and the new sections the old city is still peaceful and quiet. Despite being at the height of the peak season, Dali did not feel as nearly as cramped at Lijiang. There were still lots of Chinese tourists passing through Old City but everyone seemed much more relaxed here and in less of a rush.

As I strolled around the streets, I found a chemist and bought some medicine, and also decided to try and attempt to eat something. I found a restaurant close to my hostel, just in case I need to dash back, and settled down to a cup of mint tea and a baked potato with mushrooms. After what was now five days of no solid food, that potato was the most amazing thing I had ever tasted. I sat under a sun umbrella, wolfing down my lunch enjoying the refreshing taste of my tea. Soon enough I felt a familiar churning and decided to call it quits and head home. But at least I had finally gotten out of my hostel! I looked forward to the next day, feeling certain my new medicine would kick in by then, and I would be able to get out and trek Cangshan Mountain which I could see thrusting itself into the horizon behind my hostel.

Alas… It was never meant to be. Over my remaining four days in Dali I shuffled my way slowly between my bed, the sitting area in my hostel, and occasionally into the old town itself when I was feeling brave and had not eaten. I managed to check out the city wall, most of the main streets and even managed to do a little shopping. However, despite the new medication I had bought, there seemed to be no end in sight to my discomfort.

I was incredibly exhausted and dreadfully hungry all the time, but I was so frightened of eating and the ensuing abdominal cramping that I had almost given up on the process completely. By this point I was surviving only on ginger tea, Hydralite and the once a day nibble of dry toast. I contemplated visiting a doctor but decided against it, hoping every day that the medicine would kick in soon and everything would go back to normal. I gave up on the idea of seeing Cangshan, Erhai Lake or the famous Three Pagodas. I was starting to feel depressed knowing I had wasted my time in Dali Old City, a town that from what little I had been able to see, was truly a gem of Yunnan.

My last night rolled around and I was lucky enough to discover it was the Naxi Torch Festival. I had had a feeling something was brewing during my previous days, as I had seen large bundles of sticks and logs being organised and sold in the streets when I had ventured out.     

Bonfire and torch materials being sold in the streets of Dali.

This festival is an ancient folk custom that has been passed down for generations. Villages have different legends as to how the festival originated, but most are based upon giving thanks for both the coming and previous year as well as the tradition of driving evil spirits out. Just after dark the hostel owners and workers took a small group of us visitors outside to light a large bonfire. I stood from the sidelines and watched as the started a huge blaze in their driveway and placed large torches into the flame which they would later take around the town.

Soon it was pitch black and because the hostel was nestled into the side of a hill it afford a great view of the old city and the many bonfires that were now being lit throughout the streets. Our hostel hosts picked up their torches and shouted for us to follow them as they made their way to the next building. Once there the locals exchanged greeting and good wishes for the coming year, before throwing small amounts of gunpowder at each other’s torches. It really was quite amazing to see the torches flame up.

The staff of 5 Elements Hostel gearing up for the Naxi Torch Festival.

Before long we moved on and headed down into the centre of the city. Everywhere I looked I could see locals revelling in the streets, shouting joyfully to each other, with groups of people gazing into bonfires as they sang songs, while others ran around chasing each other with torches and gunpowder. It was shaping up to be a great night. But soon enough my feelings of joy began to be overshadowed by an all too familiar feeling in my stomach. I bade farewell to my new friends and turn to make the quick dash back to my hostel.

Then next day I sat in the hostel garden and drank in the beautiful surroundings and gorgeous warm weather for the last time. Soon I would be boarding for a 35 hour train journey to Guangxi Province. The churning into my stomach was still ever-present and I was dreading this trip unlike anything I had ever feared before. Over the last 8 days I had been spending a lot of time in bathrooms, and anyone who has ever experienced long distance train toilets in China will tell you, you want to do your absolute best to avoid those cesspits. While sitting in the garden I devised a cunning plan for my trip. I would not eat anything solid and crack open my small stash of hard core Chinese sleeping pills in order for the journey to be as quick and painless as possible. It would prove to be a good plan!

I boarded my train to Guangxi, took my knockoff Chinese Valium and proceeded to sleep my way through the next 35 hour journey, hoping all the while my endless tummy torture would miraculously disappear...