Yunnan May 2010 - Dino City & Dali 10th May

Today we'll be heading to 大理, Dali... one of the famous cities that is a MUST visit when u're in Yunnan province.

Kunming in the morning... almost pretty similar to s'pore huh. =P

But before we head to 大理, we had to visit an amazing place... this museum (???), digging site (???) which is near to 楚雄 (Chu Xiong).

Chu Xiong region

yeah... we're going to visit the dinosaur valley...which is near to 楚雄 in a town called lufeng. This dinosaur valley park was opened in 2008. in this region, over 120 dino fossils were discovered since 1938. to tell u the truth... never did i imagine that I can see and feel a dino fossile up front.... hahaha.... but this was amazing! we got to see not juz 1 fossil... but many of them... and some of them were still stuck in the rocks, sand??

Archaeologist at work. they are still digging up dino fossils in that area

the chinese have yet to get them out... but if that is impossible, then they will juz cut out the rock that the bones have fossilised on and protect it. in fact when the archeologists discovered the bones... they were struck by 4 mysterious things.

1. How come all the heads of the dinos were turned towards the east?
2. How did all of them all die? and if all of them all die at the same time? What was the cause of their deaths?
3. Why are there not dino eggs in this valley? (coz at the moment, archeologists have only managed to discover dino eggs in USA. not other places where the dino fossils are found)
4. (I can't remember wat was the last mystery.... when i recall i'll put it here)

Dino City in Chu Xiong

Entering the park, there are four 4 28-meter-high marble columns engraved with 240 lifelike dinosaurs. Riding on the park tour bus, visitors reach the Dinosaur Base Camp. The tourist guide explains. "The Dinosaur Base Camp is a high-tech exhibition hall with dinosaur fossils and scientific films about the animal. Its Cine-rama hall provides vivid pictures of phenomena like striking aerolites, erupting volcanoes, earthquakes and the extinction of dinosaurs."

Columns with the different dinosaurs

Dino city park

Real dino bones (super long this dinosaur)

All the dinosaurs were looking towards the east... makes it feel as though there were running away from something catastrohpic from the west???

this is one of my favourite dino since young... hahaha

The dinos were too big to fit into the pic

after touring the dino valley, we headed down to 大理, our next destination. it was a 4-5hr bus ride to 大理. along the way... most of us slept whilst i was looking out the window. hahaha... coz i was trying to capture as much sights, scenery as i could... coz I was not sure if i will come back to this place again. i must say that the area that we drove through were either barren land or acres and acres of paddie fields either with rice plants growing or the rice had been harvested. if the rice had been harvested, then the fields will either appear as yellow or brown. otherwise the fields will appear green. and i not sure if all parts of china are as dusty as yunnan province. coz the 大理 tour-guide later on will tell us that one of her colleagues went to s'pore last year. and when she came back the 2 things that she was most impressed and remembered clearly were:

1. pple were very polite. someone happen to accidentally bumped into her... the person appologised.
2. s'pore is really very clean. to the extend that its surprising to see that the tyres of vehicles were still black in colour after travelling long distances.

(coz over in yunnan... all over is very dusty... tyres of vehicles will definitely be coated with layers of dust... and tyres appear light brown. even the vehicle body will be coated with layers of dust... never will the car bodies be gleaming in their nice clean coat of paint)

Dali City

This was where we met our 大理 tour guide. not too sure what is the building behind us. but it looked nice so we took a picture.

our kuming guide did not follow us to 大理. when we reached the new town of 大理, our 大理 guide boarded the coach.... and her name is 李莉. she is of the Bai Nationality (白族). The Bai people hold the white color in high esteem and call themselves "Baizi", "Baini" or "Baihuo", which means white people. (but they are not of white skin. its juz that they like white colour) In 1956, of their own will they were named the Bai Nationality. They have their own spoken language that belongs to the Tibeto-Burman stock of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Many Bai people are good at the Han language (chinese lang). They use the Han characters as their writing system. Besides Buddhism and Taoism , the worship of Patron God is most popular. The Patron God Temple can be found in almost every village. Patron God is the Guardian of a village or a region.

The Bai people's houses are unique. The typical style is "sanfgangyizhaobi" and "sihewutianjing." "Sanfangyizhaobi" refers to three houses on three sides and a decorative screen wall to reflect sunlight to the house. " Sihewutianjing" is a house with a major courtyard and tour small ones at the four corners of the major one .The Bai people's houses are generally decorated with wooden carvings, stone carvings and marble, which add luster to the traditional characteristics of the houses. (u'll be able to see some photos of a 白族's house which we visited for 3 cups of tea and a 白族 cultural performance) The Bai people regard white as an honorable color and like to wear white clothes. Men often wear white coats with black vests. Women like to wear white or blue jackets with black or blue vests. Unmarried women like to have a pigtail, or wear beautiful headdresses that show the four famous scenes in Dali, namely the flowers in Shangguan, the wind in Xiaguan, the snow on the top of the Cangshan Mountain and the moon reflected in the Erhai Lake. The married women coil their hair and wrap it with black or embroidered cloth. On their headdress, there is a bunch of white strings. the longer ones = unmarried, shorter strings = married. and when a woman gets married, her husband's mum will used a sissors to cut off the strings to make it shorter. and their custom is guys who touched the bunch of strings represents that this guy have a proposition to the unmarried girl. (interesting custom isn't it??)

anyway after informing us of the 白族 people's custom, we headed down to the famous lake in 大理, which is 洱海 (er hai). It means, 'sea shaped like an ear', in Chinese. Implying that the lake is ear shaped and as large as a sea, hence it was so named. The lake covers an area of 250 square kilometers and is located about two kilometers east of Dali. It is like a crescent lying between Cangshan (苍山) and Dali city as seen from Cangshan mountains. my sister and i not only took photos of 洱海, we also climbed the 300 steps to a temple. in fact we did not visit the temple, we just tried to get the best view of 洱海 from the top and snap some pictures. i muz say... it was damn tiring climbing up the steps... furthermore, 大理 is 1000+++m above sea level (higher than Kunming) so it was a little tougher climbing up the steps here as compared to climbing the flight of steps in s'pore.

That's 300++ steps to the temple behind my mum that my sis and i climbed

洱海 taken form the temple

after the snapping of photos in 洱海 and the toilet break.... we headed to the 古城 of 大理. it is here that i bought a silver bracelet for both me and my mum and a pair of earrings for me and my sis. coz Yunnan is well known for her silver. and the pricing was resonable. 15 Yuan for 1 gram.

Tour guide and us taken at the Yang Ren jie

Streets of 大理古城

We also drank a lot of the tian qi hua cha in 古城. One thing that u need to know about Yunnan is, Yunnan is very famous for its thousands of chinese herbs!!! and Tian qi is one of the herb that Yunnan produces a lot... and this particular herb is especially gd for people... as it helps better blood circulation in the body.

after buying the items that we wanted, we headed to a 白族家 where we got to tour round the house and also got to learn about why in each 白族 house, there will be a huge white wall facing all the rooms. the reason being, 白族 people do not like windows, coz windows will cause all the wealth to flow out of the house. hence no windows. and becoz of this, the rooms are rather dark... and lanterns are not lit until its night... so this huge wall that is facing all the rooms will allow the light to be reflected into the rooms.

Typical 白族house. its very dark in the rooms

Courtyard of a 白族家

and we were treated to a cultural show of how the 白族 people hold their weddings and wat's to come next after the wedding. whilst watching the performance we also drank 3 cups of different tea. 1st cup was puer tea. 2nd cup was a sweet ginger tea with pieces of yak's butter?? or cow's butter... but it tasted nice. this was to represent the couple to have a sweet marriage. 3rd cup was the pepper tea (花椒茶) is to represent the returning of the bride to the 娘家. this 3rd cup was bland... but the presence of the 花椒 gave a numbing of the tongue in the aftertaste. urgh... not really nice... but i juz drank.

Hostess of the performance that we watched in the 白族家. this was where we drank the 3 cups of tea

after this, we had our dinner before heading to our hotel. which was the best in Dali (it was a 5 star hotel). the hotel was named as 风花雪月. and in Dali, the girls are known as Jin hua (金花) and guys are known as Ah Peng (阿朋).

tomorrow we will head to lijiang!! yay! Lijiang here i come!!! =D