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Today I gave another attempt at the Bamboo Temple. The hostel staff said I have to go to a slightly different spot around the corner on the road. But still, I didn’t see any bus waiting. Back at the hostel again, they said the bus doesn’t start there but it passes there. I went back again and still didn’t see anything like that passing.

In the mean time I got some directions from a friend. I got on a bus, but after one minute and one stop, everyone got off the bus. It was the end of the line! I asked the driver how to get to the stop I wanted, and she pointed be to go to the other side of the road. I walk over there, I see the same bus to a U-Turn and I board it again. The driver wants me to pay a second time. I said no and got on the bus anyway, since I was angry. According to my directions I had to more buses to transfer to. Just before I was to board the second bus the battery in my phone dies along with my directions. I decided to turn around and go back.

I had a train to catch later in the night too. 8PM train for Chengdu.

It is perfect weather here in Kunming. Clear skies and good temperatures. I got up early so I could go to the Bamboo Temple, home to 500 life sized carved sculptures of arhats. However I followed the specific instructions in my guidebook for a bus, but no bus was to be found!

Instead, I went to Yuantong Temple, Yunnan University, and the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

I decided to take a daytime bus back to the city of Kunming since the scenery is so good. It didn’t work out that perfectly when I sat down in my assigned seat and noticed my window was nearly fogged over. The bus was completely full too, so I had no choice but sit there. I left at 10:30AM and arrived at about 8PM. Half way through, everyone got off the bus for a free meal. Not a good meal, but a free one. Now I’m thinking last time I took a long bus in China I missed the free meal, I just stayed on the bus.

I was dropped off at the West Bus Station, not the long distance bus station. I didn’t know how to get to the hostel from here. There were some taxi drivers, I asked if they have a meter, they said no. I hate taxi drivers, so I decided to walk even though their prices were pretty good. I found the bus station on the map and walked, but got a little lost. I wondered into a travel agency and they showed me where I was on the map. From there I was able to get to the hostel. Later I found out why I got lost. I was looking at the wrong bus station on the map!

I didn’t want to leave Yunnan province without seeing the scenic area of Tiger Leaping Gorge. I went to the bus station and got on a bus to the nearest town. The bus ride was an experience since one has to go over a mountain range in order to get there. So it was up some mountains and then descended for what seemed like over an hour. The road wasn’t perfect, but very bumpy for this bus. I was sitting in the back seat and I was flying up out of the seat at times! I couldn’t find a seatbelt, so I held on to my camera, computer, and myself. I was scared, since many stretches of the road had no guard rails.

Nearing the town, I noticed a lot of army soldiers, and this was not a military base. I’m getting close to Tibet here and these look like some of the reserve troops incase some riots start occurring farther up the mountains.

I got dropped off in town, while most of the people on the bus continued to Shangra-la. All my guidebooks said I have to bargain for a taxi or van to take me into the gorge unless I wanted to walk the whole way (2 days walk). There only seemed to be one taxi driver who spoke English running things. So much for choices. I was also the only person looking for a taxi, so much for sharing and splitting the cost. So I had to try my bargaining skills. First rule is to be willing to walk away. In this case, take the bus back to Lijiang and miss out seeing one of the most beautiful places in the world. After an hour of walking around trying to get him to go lower, he wouldn’t budge because he knew I had no other choices. I was prepared to leave. I almost got on one bus but decided I should really see this place, so I took him up on his offer.

So for about $21 he would drive me in, skip the ticket office, let me walk around for a couple hours and drive me back. When we started, he pointed to the back seat and said “sleep 5 minutes.” I didn’t understand, I wasn’t tired. But then we started driving and I understood I had to get down low as we passed the ticket checkpoint to show he wasn’t carrying a customer. And it worked!

We drove past the main sightseeing place where the big buses stop (Upper Gorge) and then the road got worse to just dirt and stones, no guardrails, places where waterfalls ran over the road. But unbelievable scenery, being the deepest gorge in the world! When we got to the Middle Gorge area, I got out and then walked down to the river below. There were a few spots with old ladies asking for “path fees” and I paid $2.50 of these in total. The sun came out and I was able to take some good photos. The driver said it takes 3 hours to walk down and up, but I think I did it in 1.5 hours. I was really tired though. It was similar to the walk down the Grand Canyon, but not quite as far, but more dangerous. At one point there was a ladder that went straight up the cliff face. It was an adventure.

Today I rented a bicycle with the goal of making it to a village called Baisha. I had my book and a hand drawn map from the hostel, but had so much trouble finding it. There were no signs, the map from the book had no detail, the scale on the hand drawn map was incorrect. I did wander upon a village called Shu He. It was similar to the main town though, a lot of new buildings and shops filling them. I should have rented my bike from another place where they give you a better map. But still I was able to see some good scenery such as the Yulong Xueshan (snow mountain) and some authentic village areas.

Today I took another bus, about 3-4 hours away, higher up into the mountains to the city of Lijiang. It is another ancient capital city, like Dali. From the bus station, I read I could take bus 11 to a supermarket to get to the old town area. It was kind of crazy because I didn’t know the exact name and didn’t know for sure where to get off, but I used my senses and all the information I had and got near the area I wanted. I wasn’t sure where I was on my map though.

I noticed a sign for MCA Hotel, which was mentioned in WikiTravel to have free wireless Internet, so I walked there. It was pretty empty. I was in a big dorm room and I was the only guest there. There was another section of the dorm room for employees of the hotel. There was also a broken shower. The shower head fell off and there was garbage on the floor. I decided to skip taking showers while I was there.

I spent the last hour of daylight looking around the old city. The main streets were like shopping malls. There must have been 1000 shops in the old city area. Some parts of the city look really nice though. I walked up a hill and got a good view of it all.

There is a famous lake next to the city. To gain access to the lake and to take a boat across and back they were asking about $20. It just seems silly considering how many lakes there are back in Michigan. Chinese people go crazy over lakes since there aren’t as many here.

The Chinese girl I met on the bus yesterday partnered me up for today only and we were able to take a horse drawn cart over to an area where we could get next to the lake for free. The other attraction is a the three pagodas (towers) which they charge nearly $20 to get into also. I took a look at them from the outside, and that was good enough for me.

I was riding a bike today too. Unfortunately, a case with my sunglasses fell out of my pants while riding. It was dark by this time and I couldn’t find it on the road. These are the same pants I had when my wallet was stolen too. I think I need to throw them out soon so this doesn’t happen again, but I’ve already lost everything that’s been in my pockets.

It was on and off rain today, so it was a good day to take the 5 hour bus to Dali. Halfway through the ride, I was surprised when a Chinese girl jumped into the seat next to me and started talking to me. I learned later she wanted to get away from an older business man that kept talking to her.

Too bad it was raining and cold when I arrived in Dali but I was able to take some time to walk around the old city. I read somewhere that there is a lot of pizza here, so I decided to try some. It took over 45 minutes to get the pizza, but it tasted good. Probably the best since the US. There are Pizza Huts and clones around Asia, but they seem a little plain after a while.

I think I got another cold over the past few days. So I spent most of the day at the hostel. However, I did go out when two roommates from NYC and London showed up and asked me if I would like to join them for lunch. So we found a local restaurant and had some noodles.

The Internet service had been pretty poor here in Southwest China. I have a suspicion it is because the censorship system can’t keep up with the load during peak usage times, so they have to cut off service in that case. The censorship is at a high level right now due to the Tibet riots. These brown outs are very annoying though, since you completely use connectivity for 10-60 minutes at a time.

We started off the day having the local speciality food, which is a flavor of rice noodles. I thought it was good. Then we returned home and watched a movie called KeKeXiLi about Tibet. For lunch, we met the other art student friend again and had the Yunnan Province speciality food, “Across the Bridge Noodles.” All the ingredients were served to you separately, which you dump into your bowl of really hot water.

Qujing is a small city of 300,000 people. It is not in any of the guidebooks, so it is rare for foreigners to visit here. So I did get some staring and some giggling school girls that saw me.

In the afternoon it was time to go. I was able to spend one night here, but there isn’t too much to see. I took the train back to Kunming, the biggest city in Yunnan, in the late afternoon.

I forgot to say before, but in Vietnam my UV filter came loose on the end of the lens and fell to the floor. The glass in the filter and the ring became separated and rolled on the floor for a while and now it doesn’t quite go back together like before. So now I’m running without any filter at the end of the lens.