May Holiday

Back to the Gorge!!

After a really nice Queens Day celebration on Saturday evening, we left for Dali on Sunday morning. We arrived in Dali after a six hour bus ride and went looking for our hotel. Nice place with friendly people! The first day consisted of nothing but walking around the old city and enjoying the great weather. The second day all of us decided to go on a bicycle ride to the Shaping market about 30 km outside town. After a pleasant ride (on old, rusty, dangerous MTB's) we got to the market and did a little tour.



After the market Shoshannah and I wanted to go further north while the others decided to head back to Dali. We cycled another 20 km and towards the place we thought we could catch a boat to Dali... but we were wrong. The boat would bring us to a place about 25 km outside Dali. Luckily a bus stopped right in front of us and was heading to Dali!! So we threw our bikes on top of the bus and had a very nice ride back to our hotel! Very nice day, although everyone was caught by surprise by the strength of the sun... Everyone had a sunburn somewhere ;-)



On Tuesday we took a bus to Lijiang. Same story here, first day everyone explored the town and the second day we went to the Black Dragon Pool Park. Again it was very sunny and the Yulong Snow Mountain looked amazing! Took some great pictures in the park!



Shoshannah and I left on Wednesday afternoon to go a day early to Tiger Leaping Gorge because we didn't feel like getting up at 6.00 AM. The bus was small and packed with tourists and half an hour before we should have arrived at the gorge the bus broke down... But sometimes break downs are fun! And this was one of those times! Right next to where we had to stop was a garage and 100 meters down the road was a little restaurant that served (cold) beer... so the three hour break wasn't bad at all!!

I won't say too much about the gorge... Once again it was incredibly beautiful!!! This time the tops of the surrounding mountains were still covered in snow and it was a lot less green than last time. Just check the pictures! I once again enjoyed every meter of it even though I was glad when we arrived back at Jane's on the third day. Jane's is the place I stayed several times now and she is a great person that runs a great hostel! Always willing to help you, cheap and comfortable rooms and good food! That same night she arranged a sleeper bus for us. We left Jane's at 19.00 and got back in Kunming at 6.00 the next morning.





Trish, Paula, Amy, Katie, Morgan & Shoshannah, thanks for a great May Holiday!

I wonder what will happen in Kunming the coming weeks...
Auf wiederschnitzel,
Ruud