Old Town Charm

The day after the pandas we took a long bus ride from Chengdu to see a 71m tall Buddha carved into a cliff face in a town called Leshan. Originally this Buddha was being carved so that the swift river the Buddha faces would be calmed by its presence. Due to all the rocks that fell into the water during construction this actually worked!  We climbed up to the head which is about 4 times the size of me and Kat. Then we descended a small staircase carved into the side of the cliff allowing us to arrive at the Giant Buddha's feet and gaze up at him until our necks hurt!

After Chengdu we took a 17 hour overnight train journey to Kunming. We stayed two nights in all and on our second day we visited the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Stone Forest in Shilin. The Stone Forest is a collection of limestone pillars that have been eroded, cracked and ravaged over the years by wind and rain to make impressive, jagged rock formations which stick up from the ground like trees. The main area of the Forest has thousands of the pillars (up to 30 meters in height) tightly packed together at all angles to form a claustrophobic natural labyrinth for us to wander. The Minor Stone Forest set slightly away from the main area had more wide open spaces filled with grass, lakes and of course huge grey limestone rocks jutting out of the ground. Both areas were amazing to get lost in for hours.

We left Kunming by bus as the Chinese National Holiday that was taking place meant that all the train tickets had sold out days in advance. We were expecting bedlam over that weekend and the following few days from speaking to locals and hearing other travelers stories but actually we were pleasantly surprised that it didn't really affect us at all! We travelled to Dali old town which is where we currently are now.

Dali is a very chilled out small town where we have stayed still for one of our longest times in China! That in itself has been lovely. No trains or buses to board for a few days! Here we took part in 'Rice & Friends' cooking school, a spot of rock climbing with Climb Dali and today we hired bikes to cycle to the three Pagodas (you see them on any advert for Dali) and down to the lake through lots of farmland and small Bai style villages (the local culture).

The cooking school was fantastic fun, our tutor Luxi was brilliant and the food we cooked tasted so good! It was really interesting to be taken around the food market in the morning as she explained anything that we didn't recognize.

The climbing was something I had never done before. We drove for just over an hour to get to the crag, got harnessed up and then we climbed 4 progressively harder routes figuring out how to get the next hand / foot holds as we went. It wasn't easy but it was really good fun and you feel such a sense of accomplishment when you reached the top and your legs and arms are burning from the effort! It's definitely something both Kat and I have said we'll try again.

Tomorrow we're heading to Lijiang which is another small town similar to Dali but with picturesque canals and bridges. We're planning to stay for two nights then catch a train onwards to Guilin and Yangshuo two cities famed for their riverside locations which will mark the end of our time in China after we cross over to Hong Kong.

Love Chris & Kat xxx