Day 9/ Day 10
Wednesday 11th – Thursday 12th July:
Suzhou-Shanghai-Kunming-Dali L
Our stomachs were crying abuse by the time we had dinner in
Dali on Thursday evening- a proper meal, that is.
Bullet train from Suzhou to the airport at 12.25pm; flight
for Kunming at 6pm; hotel in Kunming (Cloudland Hotel that did not have any
electricity that day. The local government had cut the power. We arrived in a
street lit by candles, though pretty, highly inconvenient in this day and age.
Straight to bed!); bus the following day for 5 hours to Dali at 11.15am
(initially, we were going to spend the day in Kunming then realised it wasn’t
quite the city so decided to go to Dali instead to arrive in the afternoon and
enjoy an evening there. Good call!)
Let’s talk about food. We love food but travelling and
transiting, especially when we’ve had to alter our itinerary means eating when
we can what we can. Here goes:
-Wednesday breakfast: Chinese breads in our hotel room.
Good.
-Wednesday lunch: late lunch at Starbucks Shanghai Hongqiao
airport. Not great.
-Wednesday dinner: on the plane and by far the worst meal
ever! We only ate the bread. My god, it was disgusting! Not too many calories
for sure.
-Thursday breakfast: western breakfast at the hotel. Like
anywhere, local food best cooked by the locals. When they try their hands at a
different cooking, the result is not that great.
-Thursday lunch: snacks on the bus.
-Thursday dinner: finally, a decent meal in Dali. Fish,
spare ribs, vegetables. Fresh and well-cooked Chinese food.
We are staying at the Four Seasons Hostel (a charming
hostel) in the Old Town Dali that is very pretty but extremely touristic
which is translated by millions of shops like in Yangshuo, Pingyao, Zhouzhang
and all these traditional old towns that have not been bulldozed during the
Cultural Revolution but instead turned into gigantic touristic markets. Still,
it is much nicer that any modern Chinese city lacking character completely.
Last but not least, the weather is a lot gentler on us: no humidity,
temperatures around 27 degrees, quite perfect.
Reflection
China is very rich culturally speaking and that is one of the perks of travelling. You get to see and enjoy each region's architecture as well as food and people. Yunnan's architecture (or at least around Kunming and Dali) is quite pretty. The bus journey allowed us to get a glimpse of the villages all along the road. The houses are made of whitewashed walls and Chinese tiled roofs (often two layers of spiky roofs) though they do not look like the ones in Suzhou at all. The outside walls are all decorated with borders in blue designs and one side wall will bear like a crest. Each house has a different crest which was new to us. The houses are arranged in a sort of circular cluster which probably means the community evolves within its centre. Really beautiful!
Reflection
China is very rich culturally speaking and that is one of the perks of travelling. You get to see and enjoy each region's architecture as well as food and people. Yunnan's architecture (or at least around Kunming and Dali) is quite pretty. The bus journey allowed us to get a glimpse of the villages all along the road. The houses are made of whitewashed walls and Chinese tiled roofs (often two layers of spiky roofs) though they do not look like the ones in Suzhou at all. The outside walls are all decorated with borders in blue designs and one side wall will bear like a crest. Each house has a different crest which was new to us. The houses are arranged in a sort of circular cluster which probably means the community evolves within its centre. Really beautiful!
No comments:
Post a Comment