To continue our journey westward we embarked on a 22-hr train ride, followed by a 5 hr bus ride. We left at 7AM on July 9th and arrived at 12:ooPM on July 10th in our final destination of Dali, Yunnan Province.
The train ride was certainly an experience. In spite of being interminally long (and hot) it was a great way to see the contryside. Miles and miles of farms, rice paddys and town after town after town...
The first leg of our journey we were stuck in the cattle car. We had supposed 'soft seat tickets' - cannot imagine what the hard seats would be like. We crammed in like sardines with seemingly thousands of students off on their summer break. The smell of humanity was quite overwhelming, a perfume we lovingly now refer to as 'Breeze of Summer'.
The last 16 hours of our journey were spent in a 2nd class sleeper car (apparently all that airline status doens'ny get us very far on the Chinese trains). This was still a welcome change from the other car - at least now we could s[read out a bit and sneak into the first class car for some AC and a clean bathroom.
As we fell asleep.. very greasy and diry and stinky from 14 hours of hot train riding... the train thankfully began to ascend to the cooler altitudes of the Yunnan province - so we slept peacefully and awoke refreshed and ready to step into the fresh air and rain of Kunming. From where we caught our next bus!
And so the adventure continues....
PS - We've been unable to post pictures but will try to attache a link to another site.
