Travelling by Train from Kunming to Dali, China

I was pleasantly surprised that J. set his alarm at 730am and were up while I was praying. I was glad that I could share a passage from 1 Samuel about how God looked at the inside of man, not the outward appearance. J. was a little distracted, unable to focus the whole sharing time. But this was the first time. I do pray that there would be more sharing time and that he will improve his attitude and attention. While I was getting ready, both father and son went downstairs to get some breakfast. They bought back some soya milk, eggs and vegetable buns. Yummy for less than 15 yuens. We set out to go to a market and went into two teashops to taste the famous Yunnan tea. We were warmly welcome to taste this famous local product. We learnt that as there were a great variety of teas being produced in the Yunnan region, therefore there were a wide range of the prices for teas. It was a valuable

lesson tasting and learning about the production of teas. We checked out of our hotel at around 230pm and took a taxi back to the pedestrian market and bought the tea where we tasted the night before. The lady who served us came and we bought the tea from her. I do hope that this tea will help me to have a better sleep. My goal is to find the tea which would help me and y friends to have a good sleep. Just after we bought the tea, rain started pouring down as we were trying to get a cab taking us to the train station. The tropical rain was quite a downpour. We tried to get a cab while standing under a small shelter. Finally, a cab came taking us to the train station and we made it to the Kumming train station in time for our 5:30pm train. Praise God! Sitting separately at three different seats, we were scattered on the train but lucky to get a ticket to Dali. Some poor souls had to stand all the way as there were no more sitting tickets available. I caught up with my writing about our travel during this train ride but were unable to post any of them within China. After 2 and ½ hours we arrived at Dali. What a scene! Huge number of visitors kept pouring out of the train station and coming into Dali. Not knowing how long it would take to get a cab, we went to the nearby restaurant and had our first dinner in Dali. After waiting for over 40 minutes for a didi as there were 90 some passengers before us, we finally got a cab taking us to the ancient city. The traffic was jammed pack with cars and it took more than half an hour to travel the 15 km from the downtown train station to the ancient city. Our hosts were waiting for us at the main road, greeting and welcoming us warmly to their newly renovated hotel. They came to our room with a bowl of fresh fruits, how nice was that! This was a beautiful place! I would take a better look tomorrow as we were tired from travelling and went to bed right away. RT, kunming to Dali, China 08022023