The sleeper train from Guilin to Kunming could have been a bit of a disaster… when we booked the tickets at the station in Guilin, we were informed that they were the last two hard sleeper tickets for that train. What they did not tell us – and what we did not notice ourselves – was that the two bunks were in completely separate carriages! That means that Siqi would be in carriage 6 and I would be in carriage 4 – and we wouldn’t be able to sit next to each other during the day for fear of leaving luggage unattended. Luckily, as soon as we were on the train, it became apparent that the guy sitting opposite me was travelling alone and after a bit of a chat I managed to convince him to swap places with Siqi – which he very kindly agreed to.
After that, things went pretty swimmingly. We managed to buy long distance bus tickets to Dali on the train itself – so as soon as we arrived in Kunming we were whisked off to our high speed coach and 4 or 5 hours down the line we turned up at the long distance bus station in Dali. We have now been here for four days and are staying in a lovely hostel (The Jade Emu) which is pretty much brand new (opened in 2008) and is located in a nice quiet area just outside the Old Town. The hostel is run by an Australian man and his Chinese wife and stands apart from pretty much every hostel I have been to – the bunk beds are extra large, you can charge phones and cameras inside security lockers, there is free internet access and there is all sorts of entertainment available to keep you busy.
To be honest, we haven’t been doing a great deal here, just general chilling out over a pot of Pu’er tea in the many hippy cafes on offer, doing some shopping around for cheap clothes and trinkets at the night markets, cycling around on a tandem, swimming in the lake and walking in the Cang Shan mountains. It’s nice to take the pressure off for a bit and to stay in one place for a couple of days – and the Old Town here has a great atmosphere and plenty of speciality food on offer.
Unfortunately, all this relaxation comes to an end tomorrow – it’s time to head back to Kunming for the last few days of our trip. Whilst we plan to spend two or three days in this provincial capital of Yunnan, we also hope to head out to some of the nearby sights and smaller villages and get out of the bustling city. After that, it’s pretty much the end of our trip… but first we have to endure the 38 hour train ride back to Beijing! No time to go to Sichuan this time round – maybe next time I’m back in China.
