November 2018 Part II (Dali, China)

After three weeks in Liming, my little paradise came to an abrupt end.

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As usual, I wake up early and go for breakfast with the others at 8am. Over steaming bowls of noodle soup and fried rice, we decide to go to a new crag-- the Diamond. At the Faraway, we go to our rooms and gather supplies.

But when we meet up again in the courtyard, there's a circle of people talking anxiously in Mandarin and English.

A flood is coming.

A local official is here-- there has been huge rainfall up the Yangtze River, causing the river to flood, and, like a wave, the flood is making its way down the river. While Liming is at a high enough elevation to avoid damage, the other roads in the valley will be washed out. The officials predict that access to Lijiang, the closest major city with airports and trains, will be closed for one or two weeks. The flood will arrive by tomorrow morning.

In other words: unless we plan to stay in Liming for another two weeks, we should leave immediately.

At this point, most people were already planning to leave Liming within the next few days, their flights home booked months in advance.

After a quick meeting, we decide to rent out a bus to Dali, another city some four hours away. We pack up and leave that afternoon.

I didn't have to leave with everyone on that bus.

My schedule was free enough that I could have stayed in Liming and waited out the flood.

But I didn't want to be cut off from these people so suddenly.

I wasn't ready for unexpected goodbyes.

Like elementary school students going on a field trip, we pack into the bus for the long drive to Dali. We talk and nap and eat cookies, and once we arrive at our hostel, we book all the available dorm beds.

In Liming, people had their own rooms or shared with just one other person, but in the Dali hostel, we pack five of us to a dorm room.

We giggle in our blankets with the lights off.

I am 29 going on 30, but sometimes I feel like it's 13.

Dali is an amazing city-- a strange place where east meets west meets something else entirely.

It was long a popular backpacking destination for foreign tourists which helped it develop its status as a place for hippies, musicians, artists and the like. Its substantial population of ex-pats has also helped it develop a 'proper' coffee culture and craft beer scene. Though these days there are more Chinese tourists than foreign, it still exudes a vibrant energy different from most any other city in China, as exemplified by the Chinese residents sporting dreadlocks and other 'unconventional' styles.

And of course, mixed in with these foreign influences, the western-style cafes and western-style bars, you find Chinese culture both local and national-- architecture by the Bai minority group indigenous to the area, foods from all across China's many provinces and regions, people ranging from the wealthy-big-city-tourist to the hippie-counter-culture-youth.

It was such a change from Liming but I loved it anyway. Sitting on the edge of a beautiful lake, nestled between mountains-- it was gorgeous.

There's climbing in Dali!

There's a fair bit of sport climbing that's been developed at the Hardcore and Softcore Walls to the north of the lake. We climbed a few days at Hardcore. The climbing consisted of pretty fun limestone!

But my god, it was hot.

While Liming had been just warm enough in the sun and frigid in the shade, Dali was hot. In the middle of November, I was sweating unbearably.

Dali is also not particularly famous for climbing, and combined with the heat, this meant that we were the first people to climb at Hardcore since the previous winter-- i.e. the approach to Hardcore was completely overgrown. It took a solid half day of bushwhacking and adventuring to get to the wall. There may have been one rolled ankle involved.

Also, holy shit orb spiders.

I don't hate spiders-- I appreciate the hard work they do in killing other insects, really I do-- but spiders from leg tip to leg tip should not be longer than an inch ever. And these orb spiders were hitting like five inches.

Gross.

So gross I didn't take a picture of them. But please, feel free to Google 'orb spiders' on your own.

Luckily, there was also closer and shadier sport climbing in Dali.

As well as some pretty solid bouldering!

Given the heat and approach, I don't know if Dali sport climbing is going to take off any time soon, but Dali bouldering could be a thing.

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Now that my trad climbing stint in Liming was over, I decided to ship home my trad rack and a few other items home. This would allow me to fit everything I needed into a single 60 liter backpack, freeing up my hands when I travel from city to city.

But the big question was-- would China Post be able to ship $500 worth of goods to America without losing it?

The estimated arrival time was 2-3 months.

Guess I’d find out by the end of February.