13 November – 16 November 2013

We started the day with a bus ride to the train station and a street food breakie (lovely middle eastern bread and Alby’s favourite yoghurt) in the waiting hall. Since there is not much more to do on a train except for eating, sleeping, reading and waiting for the next time to eat there is not so much to tell. Our main accomplishment of the day was to have finished a book each. 24 hours later we arrived in Kunming, capital of Yunnan.

Reeling from our long journey, slightly bewildered and very disorientated we hopped on the first bus we saw. Turned out not to be a bad choice, as it seemed to be heading into town. By chance we hopped of at the entrance of a massive phone shop and, given that Clara was in the market for a new phone, we decided to have a look. Eventually Clara was tempted into buying an new machine and satisfied we walked to the nearby food street for a ‘pick your own ingredients and we’ll fry it’ noodle house, where we devoured huge noodle soups for only 8 Yuan! With full stomachs we hopped on a bus and after a suitable amount of faff we arrived at the long distance bus station where we found an immediate connection to Dali. Five hours later on the most luxurious bus we’ve had we arrived at what we thought was Dali… it turned out to be Xiaguan, the nearby modern city. We spent two hours stressing and faffing before arriving at the Jade Roo hostel, on the edge of Dali’s ancient village. After settling we went to a local restaurant where (again) we overordered ourselves with rice, veg and tofu… and went to bed.

Our planned lie-in turned into a relatively early morning since neither of us could sleep much. We packed an overnight bag and headed into town for a street food breakfast which we enjoyed in a local park – with taichi practicing early birds. We had heard about a good cycling route around Erhai lake (98 kilometres) which passes through sleepy fishing villages and fields of veg-garden. After our fill of taichi entertainment we found ourselves a couple of mountain bikes in a nearby shop and set off. 



We sped downhill from Dali for fifteen minutes before we reached the lake’s shore and were greeted with clear views across the lake. We found a scenic road which we followed up the western shore for a couple of hours before stopping for a snackie lunch overlooking rows of Chinese cabbages. After experiencing the worst public toilet in the world – complete with maggots – we continued north until the village of Shangguan. We envisaged spending the night here but we were advised by locals to cycle on to the eastern shore where at Shuang Lang there was a larger choice of guesthouses.


We munched some snacks before setting off and 20km later we arrived at our destination. We had cycled past a family of twelve cormorants waiting for their fishing friend on a fishing boat, dozens of semi-submerged trees along the shore and had spent most of our time dodging nets full of drying fish on the side of the road. By lack of our mandarin skills we again madly pointed at random vegetables in a restaurant to compose our meal (which included a tomato and egg soup which we had proudly deliberately ordered). Again we were polite and left our plates clean which left us to roll down the streets back to our beds in a luxurious but cheap guesthouse suite. On the way we experienced the village Am-Dram showcase of the month/year which proved very entertaining.

We woke early in anticipation of our long day of cycling ahead, however our departure wasn’t as smooth as planned. We headed into town looking forward to a big sweet breakfast, but with the lack of cafes/bakeries/anything resembling bread based snacks we found ourselves eating one of the spiciest noodle pots we’ve had at 9am. Although intriguing we avoided the furry, fungus inhabited tofu slabs which appeared to be a local specialty.


With fire in our bellies we hopped on our bikes and were back on route heading south along the eastern shore back to Dali. With the sun beating down on us we stopped for lunch by the side of the road overlooking the lake. As we continued and with increasingly sunburned arms and legs we took more and more breaks until we arrived in Dali at 5pm. We dropped off our bikes and promptly returned to the hostel for a well needed shower and a monster laundry session. We found dinner in an overpriced Buddhist vegan restaurant and smothered ourselves in after-sun before bed.