A quick report of our stay in Dali!

During our stay in Dali, we rented bikes to ride around. The ride was supposed to be quite nice, but actually the beginning was quite disappointing, unless you’re interested in Chinese road construction…

Anyway, after a couple of hours riding under a blazing sun, we reached a small town by the lake, and we explored it for a bit

While quite picturesque, you actually should appreciate the fact that digital pictures are not able (yet!) to capture the smell of the place, since the nearby open-air “bathrooms” were very stinky and disgusting!

However, the way back to the hostel was ok: we rode on small trails to avoid the heavy (and noisy) traffic on the highway, and went through a lot of rice paddies, where Chinese peasants were busy working

As you can see on the next picture, Kath is very focused on the trail, and that is because she does not want to fall *again* into the rice paddies… it is however Roland’s fault as well since he’s the one who stopped suddenly in the middle of the path to take a picture of Kath (just after giving her the bike with no brakes…)

The roads are busy with cars and motorbikes, as well as horse-drawn carts

As everywhere in China, the local butchers use the latest up-to-date and most modern cutting techniques, in the most strictly controled hygienic environment…

Dali has been renovated to look its best for the hordes of tourists coming there…

But for some reason, the magic here didn’t work as well as in Lijiang…

Kath did, however, use the time there to take some people shots, and here are a few selected ones…

An example of food stall, as you see a lot of in China…

some women walking down the street with their shopping baskets on the back (all women seem to have one, even the oldest!)

The real local outfit:

and the one for the tourists (maybe more traditionnal? definitely fancier!):

And as usual huge loads on small carts:

All the restaurants show their selection of fresh veggies (and fish… and frogs…) to the potential customers wandering around town:

And last but not least, the famous Three Pagodas of Dali, which we only saw from outside the park since we did not want to pay the 121 yuans per person to visit! And you can’t even climb inside them for this price!!!