Dali (No, not the painter)

We left Kunming on the overnight train departing 11pm and due to arrive 8.20am. We were booked in a 6 berth section in an open carriage, so I was thankful all the honest people were on the train that night. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the roof, then the pillow (its possible I had altitude sickness from sleeping on the top bunk).

Dali is a couple of towns fairly west in southern China. I say 2 because they have built a new town next to the old town - I'm suggesting that they kept them separate as the old town is so cool and they didn't want to take away from it... We're only about 2-3 hours from the 'Tibetan border'. Not sure if I'm allowed to say that here, but I just did. Dali (old town) is about 1000 years old, compared with the new town of only about 100 years. The centre of the city is still surrounded by its imperial wall, and inside is an amazing maze of streets and waterways. It really is beautiful. All the buildings are adorned with those beautiful landscape paintings that are synonymous with China, and have calligraphy encouraging good luck and well being to the household.

Dali and its people's farm land, is squeezed into a strip of land set in between a huge lake and equally huge mountains. The town is about 1900m but the mountains reach as high as 4000m. I know this because yesterday I made some poor horse drag me up about 2000 of those metres. The view was nice, and I hope the horse enjoyed it also. Today I headed to the lake by bike with a few others from the tour. The ride was lovely - through the local rice/garlic/onion/white carrot allotments to the next village. What's really great about the locals here is that they still dress traditionally, and its not for the benefit of the tourists. (Well OK, some dress elaborately traditional for the pictures and then part you with a 'small' amount of cash). The women wear dark blue trousers with a blue apron and shirt, with their hair wound up in a lighter, but matching blue scarf. The men are in a blue blazer with little blue caps. Unfortunately this tradition seems to be dieing out the younger generations who are opting for jeans and jackets.

We dropped in at the local kinda. The kids were ridiculously excited, and promptly put on a dance - first the girls and then the boys. It was very, very cute.

From that village we headed north to the next, older village who still have a traditional tea ceremony. Unfortunately is was 25kms away, and it was quite hot, so I could probably fry tomorrow's eggs for breakfast on my shoulders. I opted out of the tea ceremony in favour of my bank account and a good stretch of the legs. The town was fairly small and quiet, but as always had a centre where everyone congregated which is always great for people watching.

I've said it before, but the food has been amazing (thank God for 'small' bike rides). I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but when you go to a local Chinese restaurant here, you pick your meal - literally - from a large selection of ingredients including nuts, vegetables, seaweeds, tofu, chicken (usually the whole chicken which includes head and feet), beef, possible its stomach, the aforementioned pigs lung, crickets, live fish, eel, shrimp etc. Steering clear of the weird stuff you can't really go wrong. Everything is 100% fresh and delicious.

We leave at 8am in the morning, heading to LiJiang. By all accounts its a beautiful spot. From there we head to Tiger Leaping Gorge which I'm really excited about, but means it could be a few days before my next post. Catch ya then.