Dali old town Erhai
In this blog, my journey continued from Kunming to Dali,
Instead of 8 hours bus ride taking up time on my trip, it would be better to
take the overnight train to go up to Dali. A few years ago, I had great
experience travel from Beijing to Xian on the over night high-speed train. I am
expecting it would be similar this time around.
The train on my previous trip had private compartments and
clean and comfortable beds plus all the modern amenities like TV, radio,
internet all surround the bed, so I did not hesitate to book the over night
train to Dali on this recent trip, plus it will save me a night of hotel
expenses, since I am a frugal traveler.
I thought it was strange when the hostel director told me
all tickets were the same, there is no first or premium class. I booked on the
midnight express so I could arrive at Dali early in the morning. Plus I was
hoping that no one wanted to travel on a mid night midnight departure, when
there was another slow travel schedule for 8PM departure, there may be less
people on the train. That was my plan.
Little did I know when I arrived at the train station the
terminals was full of young people. I was not worry then because I have
assigned tickets with compartment and bed number. I was shock when I finally
got on the train, it was like in a movies. The hallways were impassable. There
were people everywhere. Pushing luggage to the overhead rack, or just seat on
the floor. When I finally found me compartment, I was horrified that it was so
small and narrow. The width of the compartments is about 7 foot wide, and 6
foot long with bunk beds 3 stacks up on both sides, these open compartments
sleep 6 in each space, plus there were no doors or privacy.
There was no place to put luggage everyone was putting their
belongings on the floor between the two bunk beds. There were fold out chairs
line the hallway at the end of the bed. Everyone is sitting there because the space
between bunks was so low no one can possibly sitting up. Some people seem very
much at home they just took of their shoes and lay in bed, worst yet there is
no gender separations, we all just hurtle into these space. I have never seen
anything like this before I was horrified by the sight of the place, never the
less if I wanted to travel and sample local culture. This is it.
There were more surprises as I reached my bed on the top
bunker three stacks up. I found the bed is only 2 and half feet wide. If I made
a sudden turn I would fell to the ground. No wonder there were no foreigners on
this train, all Chinese locals most of then are just like me trying to travel
the most economical ways. I don’t think you will ever imagine the scene here,
and I was not in the mood to take any picture. Passengers were everywhere,
there were lines outside the toilets, everyone was talking, moving around, it
was noisy and stuffy, I lie down thinking it is going to be a long and
sleepless night, then the train started to move right on time, people started
settling down, they must have known what came next, needless to say I had no
clue, 10 minutes after the train left the terminals all lights were turn off
without any warnings. What this a prison? It felt like one
I was awoke by the loud announcement we were arriving our
destination in 10 minutes, then the light came on and the entire compartment
were on the move again, everyone was rushing to get off their bunkers gathering
their stuff to get the hell out of the so call train.
Outside the Dali terminals, the first thing that greets me was
the fresh, cold, crisp mountain air clean streets and a beautiful morning sun. I
decided that I must treat myself a taxi ride to my destination outside of the
old town instead of riding the local bus. Luck was on my side that morning; I
met someone to share a ride with. It was a 45 minutes ride thru the modern downtown
of Dali on to the countryside. The streets were empty, after a night in hell, I
was relaxed, and soon traditional dwellings and the sight of an imposing city
wall of the old city greeted me. I knew I had arrived my destination.
The main reason bought me to Dali was the beauty of the
Erhai Lake, which is the headwater of the Mekong River; water from the
surrounding mountains irrigated the fields surrounding the lake from the well-developed
ancient irrigated canals. Though out history she had been an important
agriculture center and a part of an important outpost of the southern trading
route, call Tea horse old trail. Therefore there are many important culture
sites I wanted to visits.
I encountered many old traditions still in use today like
the local backpack, which is made from Bamboo, used by women carrying
everything on their back, carrying one of these on their back, they do not look
out of place because in this part of the country, most people still wore their
very colorful traditional customs on their daily life, even just planting
garlic in the fields, they dress in these very colorful clothing unchanged for
thousands of years as if they were going to a dinner party, especially their
beautiful head dress.
My most notable encounter in Dali and Erhai Lake was how
happy these villagers were, with very simple means in their traditional way of
life. Even with the modern world is just a stone throw away. Inside the rampart
of the old city gates there were numerous western style bars and restaurants, modern
hotel is just 2 hours walk and yet they seems to be most at ease at their
traditional ways of life.
I was captivated by a group of very beautiful older ladies,
in a temple complex, some of them were cooking in a very large open air
community kitchens, with nothing more than just a woks on many wood burning
stove, line the far end of the wall, the others were sitting in a small circle
all singing along or clapping their hand to the folk music broadcast from a
small transistor radio. When I ask for taking photos of them, they were all so
please and excited. I felt in love with these little communities, I would never
forget the afternoon we shared in Dali.
This encounter made me reflect on our western way of life
with so much baggage on our back, is that really necessary? Do we need all that
in order to achieve simple happiness?
Chance Encounter Dali Yunnan, China
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