Train ticket fail: Website doesn't work, so we head down to a ticket counter, and we can only buy separate tickets, in different cars. I say no way.
We fly to Kunming. Try to buy train ticket from Kunming to Dali. Website doesn't work.
Hotel offers to help us buy tickets. Then they say they can't. Send us to hotel across the street. They can't help either.
Flag down a taxi to take us to train station. Rejected by taxi.
Back to hotel. Get a taxi.
Train station zoo of people, impossible, all in Chinese, ticket lines so long. Electronic ticket machine impossible to use.
People wait in super long lines (like 20 lines) to buy tickets at the counter. We are able to figure out how the scrolling giant info screen works. It says, basically: sold out.
Grab a bun and a naan-like thing.
Wander around outside, find travel agencies, find one who speaks English.
She puts us on a bus. Ride bus for 30 mins to big bus station.
Buy tickets. People vaguely motion toward row of buses. Guy puts us on bus.
Girls sitting next to us confirm that it's the right bus.
Ride bus about 6 hours. We're afraid to eat/drink water because we don't know if/when we'll make stops.
We do make one stop to go to the bathroom and buy snacks.
Impossible to tell where to get off. Helpful girls tell us where to get off.
We actually get off in Xiaguan, which is not Dali.
Don't know where to go, men are waiting at the gate shouting, "Hello, hello, Dali!"
Girls tell us to follow them. We start walking.
Pick up some stragglers (a Chinese couple or two also trying to get to Dali). Form a small herd.
Helpful girls ask man at barber shop where to go. He says some stuff and points.
Wander to bus stop. Look around.
Go to another bus stop.
Get on another bus.
Picks up all kinds of people to sit/stand in the aisle.
Get off in Dali, find hotel with Apple maps.
***
Dali to Shangri-la
Book bus at travel agency. Learned our lesson.
Meet woman with umbrella, short pink shorts, floppy hat, phone in hand. Walk to bus stop.
She leaves us to guide other people to their bus. Watch several buses fill up and leave. Could that be our bus?
Girl returns, tells us bus broke down and the next one is in "30 hours."
Takes us back to travel agency to sit out front.
Bus arrives and it is tiny and full. Josh and I do not fit on Chinese buses. I sit with shoulders curled and knees jammed into seat, sweating against the woman next to me for 6 hours.
Winding roads, serious drops, driver weaving in and out of traffic.
Amazing views. Guy next to Josh keeps falling asleep on Josh's shoulder.
We pick up anyone with a thumb basically. One Tibetan woman has a big basket and a cardboard box. Cardboard box starts jumping/moving around. Josh thinks it's a rabbit. I think it's a chicken.
Use Apple maps to jump off at a random street to find hostel.
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