Dali - China

Dali was a preplanned rest for 5 days. It was described in the guide book as a place for backpackers. This usually means very laid back and a chance to have some western food. So we were all looking forward to it. Especially since we had taken a huge journey just to get there. This consisted of an overnight train from Chengdu, and then a 10 hour locals bus ride along dirt roads, that in parts were extremely wet and muddy, along windy mountain roads, and much crazy overtaking. I wore my pressure point braclets and was very pleased not to have felt at all motion sick! The huge journey didn´t help, in the fact that it was Jacque´s Birthday. We arrived after dark, and ended up at a restaurant, without our phrase book, and having to point at the variety of food on display, for suggestions of what we may like to eat, (or for them to cook up for us). I was even going through their fridge trying to determine what meat they had. We communicated our best to have chicken, and when they started chopping up the whole chicken, feet and all, I did my best to try and get them to leave this out, as Jacque especially wouldn´t have been too keen to discovering them in her meal. The food was actually really nice! Not what Jacque had in mind though. Dali is on Lake Erhai, 1,900 m above sea level. It is a rustic walled city with cobbled streets and loads of handicrafts. We enjoyed some western food, our favourite sweet and sour pork, satay, and Indian, and numerous bottles of red wine. There was even an Irish bar where the boys played pool. Ian and I hired some bicyles and went on the biggest ride of my life, approx. 50 kms. Initially we rode through villages and in between rice fields, which was great, and even to a Butterfly park, where they apparently gather in the thousands in the spring time. By the end of it, and with the rain, I was so totally over it, with an extremely sore bum, back and hands. It was getting dark as we got back. We had planned on going up the near by mountain on the couple of cable cars, but unfortunately there was two persistent days of rain. This also forced us to relax more, read more, and the boys entertained themselves by purchasing a Chinese board game called ¨Go¨and trying to learn the rules.