February 11, 2008
Jinghong - Xiaguan (Dali): From palm-lined avenues to snow-capped mountains
Today we fly to Dali. Since we aren't sure how they are going to handle our bikes at the airport, we make sure to get there early. A little too early since the check-in at the little airport isn't yet open. When they do open, we roll the bikes with pedals turned inward and handlebars in line with the frame up to the counter. No one bats an eye. They just check to see if we have let enough air out of the tires and take the bikes as they are, no box or packaging necessary. I have to sign a paper agreeing that they will not be responsible for any damage due to insufficient packing and they wave us through. There is no extra charge for overweight. We never expected it would be that easy.
In the Internet we got varying weather forecasts for Dali, depending on whether we used Yahoo or Weather.com or another online weather service. One said cloudy and 6 degrees centigrade, brrrrr, the other sunny and 16 degrees, much better. We land in Dali in blinding bright sunshine, it's 15 degrees and a fierce wind is blowing. We are at an altitude of almost 2000 meters and the air is crystal clear. From the airport runway we get a gorgeous view of snow-capped mountains.
From the airport it's 15 km downhill to the new part of Dali, or Xiaguan, which extends from the tip of Lake Erhai up into the hills. The ancient city of Dali is another 18 km to the north. On our way down to the lake Janos gets his second puncture of the trip, this time caused by a big nasty thumbtack.
The lake is beautiful with the snowy peaks on the west side and brown hills rising to the east. The road along the lakefront is lined with new buildings with much glass and chrome, most of them not yet occupied. All over you see new hotels being built, incredible touristic expansion. This certainly isn't the China I knew 15 years ago.
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The streets of Xiaguan are wide but there is little, albeit chaotic, traffic. There are wide bicycle lanes, very few bicycles, and the lanes are frequently blocked by parking cars. The streets are swept and clean, there are trash containers along the sidewalks for recycling. This is a new China, again not the China I knew 15 years ago.
We decide to stay in Xiaguan and continue on to Dali tomorrow. We choose a hotel on the main street, Xin Hua Hotel I think it's called, which has much in common with our hotel in Jinghong, and later we see much in common with all Chinese hotels of this category. There seems to be a standard way of outfitting and running hotels here. The lobbies are impressive, we get magnetic key cards, between the twin beds there is a panel for lights with dimmers. A special feature here is the floor mat in the elevator with the day of the week on it. It's nice to go out knowing what day it is.
We eat at a restaurant specializing in fish. Again we embark on the point-at-ingredients-and-not-know-what-we-will-get procedure. But then an English speaking guest comes to our rescue and helps us order from the beautiful array of vegetables and seafood.
And then the sun disappears behind the mountains and it gets very chilly. We are tired enough from the day and have no problem with going to bed early to keep warm.
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