A Trip to Dali

So my schedule’s a little weird this week. Wednesday was the Mid-Autumn Festival (a national holiday), so Pengtun got Wed-Friday off. Excellent, right? Five day weekend! No, no. We traded Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for last Sunday and this whole weekend. I teach an evening class tonight and have my normal Thursday and Friday schedule tomorrow and Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, everybody was talking about the three-day vacation, but… I mean… we don’t actually get time off. Somehow most people didn’t seem to notice that fact. At any rate, it’s been really nice to have three vacation days back-to-back-to-back, even if it means having a seven-day work week starting tomorrow.

To take advantage of these three days, some of us Heqing folks decided to bus down to Dali. Dali is one of two cities in my area of Yunnan (the other being Lijiang) frequented by Chinese and Western tourists alike. Dali’s the bigger of the two, by quite a bit, and I’d say there’s more of a permanent expat population there than one would find in Lijiang. In fact, one of CEI’s American Fellows this year has lived in Dali with her family since she was twelve. (Her Dad works in agricultural exports or something.) There are a lot of Western restaurants and a bar street of sorts and little inns approximately every three feet. It’s a nice place to walk around and just chill out.

Mark, Ma LiJun, Arianne and GaoShan (two girls from JinDun, another of the Heqing schools) and I went down together on Wednesday afternoon. Buses leave frequently and take about two and a half hours. It’s a pretty ride, mostly through mountains. I took some pictures of the trip back up and will post them soon. Once arriving we wandered through the streets and found an inn. Since there were five of us, we split two rooms, with two of the girls kind enough to offer to share one of the double beds. While hardly fancy, the hotel was nice enough, with a fish pond and sit-down flushing toilets. There was even a shower in my room! Of course, the floor of the shower was kinda falling apart, but the water was warm and there was enough of it that it didn’t take me three minutes to rinse the conditioner out of my hair. Plus there was a big mirror. The beds were also a bit harder than what I would have liked, but they were perfectly adequate. And what did we pay for this place, you might like to know. Eighty kuai a room, or 32 kuai a piece. About five bucks. Not bad at all.

After dropping our stuff, we wandered in search of dinner. I was ridiculously excited at the prospect of eating something not Yunnanese—I’d seen Tibetan, Xinjiang, Indian, and Western places coming in. As we headed back towards town center, I suddenly heard someone yelling my name. Now, in the states, if I hear someone yelling “Emily!” I turn with half my attention, knowing that it could very easily be a different Emily. However, I was in Yunnan, China, and the two kids with American accents who’d come with me to Dali were standing right next to me. I turned around, and it was Kristin—my American roommate from the Lincang STP!! We had a rather epic, running-at-each-other-and-big-hugs reunion. I was so, so happy to see her. And as it turned out, she was far from the only one. There were like a dozen CEI folks who’d come up from Lincang for a couple of days. So many hugs, so many smiles, so much catching up (and I feel as though I barely got started in that respect. I wish I’d had more time with them). A lot of schools only found out they got Friday off on Tuesday night (thank you, rural China), so plans had been hastily made. Since the Lincang kids had already ordered, the Heqing folks decided to do dinner alone and meet up again later for some revelry.

We walked for quite awhile, trying to find a suitable restaurant, and eventually settled on a place that Ma LiJun and Gao Shan said was known for its pizza. They were not mistaken. It was by far the best pizza I’d had since leaving the States—thin-crusted and cheesy. We also supped on banana fritters and fruit salad, and I even got a can of seltzer water. I felt very indulgent indeed. Of course, Western food is more expensive than Chinese, but it still wasn’t that bad pricewise, and totally worth it considering the circumstances. The restaurant/bar is owned by a Scotsman and had expat bar tenders—something I’m not sure I even ever saw in Beijing. Bad Monkey, Dali, Yunnan, China. If you’re ever in the area, check it out. Bad Monkey, in fact, became CEI’s spot for the evening, which was a ton of fun. It was just so fantastic to see everyone and hang out American style. I really, really miss the Lincang people. Heqing is great, but it's isolated. I'm about seven hours from the nearest non-Heqing fellows, if I counted correctly.

A little after one, I was sleepy and decided to wander back to the hotel. An amazing thing about China is that I felt totally safe doing this. There are so many places in the States where, that late at night, I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable walking around alone. There are places like that in China too, but they’re far fewer.

The next morning, I strolled alone, wandering through the mix of stone and asphalt-paved streets that mark the city. I got to an area where there were suddenly no expats, so that was nice. Dali is a lot more integrated than Lijiang, in the sense that the “Old Town” is not just for tourists and entirely distinct from the new town. It feels healthier in that sense. That being said, there are definitely still areas more touristy than others, and it’s nice to have the option to meander away from them.

The Heqing folks (who’d gone to bed earlier than the Lincang folks—the other four all went back to the hotel at least an hour or two before me) met up for breakfast at the famed German Bakery—Bakery No. 88. Oh my goodness. I’d heard about this place from a bunch of last year’s fellows, so I was really excited to try it, and it was heavenly . just a little café, with IKEA-esque fixtures and tableware. (I know for a fact that the silverware is from there, because it says so.) They have a small collection of imported cheeses and other products, but the real treat is the bread. I had excellently chewy and flavorful ciabatta with cream cheese and homemade raspberry jam. I also splurged on a bottle of Italian olive oil and a loaf that turned out not to be the whole wheat sourdough I was told it was. I’m not crazy about the flavor, but still, it’s bread. I want to make friends with the workers there. They seem really nice, and I get the feeling I’ll be paying that place a visit at least once every time I’m in Dali.

After some more wanderings, including a stop by an English bookstore where I found a bilingual copy of “Horton Hatches an Egg” (Yay Dr. Seuss!) we ran into some CEI folks again and said our goodbyes. Then it was off to…well, Wal-Mart. Not a place I ever shop in the states but, unfortunately, one of the best places to find things in China. And find things I did! I got rotini and skippy peanut butter and ground cinnamon and dried black beans and a small bag of brown rice. No cocoa powder or chocolate chips could, unfortunately, but you can’t have everything in life.

We bussed back home after that, quietly content. Dali really was just a breath of fresh air, and I hope to get down there fairly regularly. It’s just far away enough that I won’t be tempted to go every weekend, but it’s close enough (and cheap enough to travel and sleep) that I can get there easily. I know that last year’s fellows had local friends (Chinese and otherwise) who lived in Dali, and I think that’d be really cool. It’s weird though. I’ve really never had to make friends without something major in common like school or a job. I don’t know how. We’ll see how it goes, I suppose.

Also, random moment of the day: I went into town to go shopping this morning, and I took one of the little cars that runs along the road from school to the town center. I was squeezed in next to two older Bai ladies, and one of them reached over and grabbed my arm, looked at it for a second, let it go, said something in her dialect that I couldn’t understand, and continued her conversation with the other lady. I don’t know if she was interested in my arm because it was white or because it was fat. I’m hoping for the former.