| 5.5 hours in a small bus up and down the mountains – now i am at a nice small guest house. tomorrow i will start to hike the gorge for 2 days. The sky looks nice and things are good. Back on the net not before the 31st.
Grrrr – my 1st 1st class flight so i could go to the 1st class lounge – and this one is the only one in china i guess without wifi – fuck!!
Anyway smooth flight. Than 40 minutes waiting for the taxi to the bus station. Than 30 minutes waiting for the bus to go. Than 1.8 hours to get out of town and a total of 6 hours to get to dali – 350 km. Than another 30 min to get to old town. than they steal my money in the hotel – 80 rmb for one room for one night – fuck.
at last free internet… and the dali beer is good 
As i had to book online and wanted to fly tomorrow morning – there where only 1st class seats possible. So now i have a 1st class seat to Kunming – great – also for my miles-and-more account.
According to Dave there will be bus transportation from the airport to Dali – should be a nice drive up into the mountains.
Went to Suining with Dave. From the overcast white sky of Chengdu we came to blue sky over there. Great!
Spend the next day exploring the temples on the hills. Found a nice spot on a island in the river. Ice cold Snow beer for 4 RMB (the big bottle!!). Had 2 nice nights at that place – no cars – the lights of the city at the other site.
Got up at 6 in the morning today – the big one. Had shower and coffee – than we did head out towards the river. Took the ferry over – only farmers on the way to the market – nobody went with us over – great. The Chinese will stay in the city.
Went to one of the little restaurants and asked the shopkeeper if she is willing to get us chairs up on the hill. She agreed for 5 RMB which is 0.42€ This we could afford – and she gave a big beach umbrella on top of it.
So here we where – in our beach chairs on top of that small hill – waiting. On another hill was a father with his son. Than it started – slow slow from the top the shade of the moon came in. Slow slow our excitement did rose – finally there was only a millimeter or so left – bum – the sun was gone. Everything came to standstill – bird stopped and the whole thing was sort of unreal. COOL!!
We had more than 5 minutes till there was the 1st millimeter of sun – a loud roar from over the river – 100.000 of Chinese where screaming and cherishing the reappearance of the sun – great!!!
Dave did pick me up from the airport. went to his place for a beer than he put me into a taxi to get to XiaoLi Liu place. We went for food and the portions where too big to eat for next to nothing. i did land in the real china after all.
still i can not raplay to facebook. jens did send me some stuff – will try if it works soon. guess after hiking to the mountains.
At 12.30 i have my plane to Chengdu. Dave – you might remember him from the Pai / Thailand pictures a few years ago – will pick me up from the airport. He will bring me to XiaoLi Liu where i will surf her couch for the next 2 nights.
The plan is to hike with Dave for a few days to ancient villages on the way
to Suining. The sky should be clear up there – best to view the eclipse. Hope there will be no rain like the last one in Stuttgart…
Update:
The flight is canceled – now i will fly 13.15 with Air China – good for my Lufthansa Miles!
There is FREE internet at Shanghai Airport! I strongly recommend to send every airport manager here!!
