Chicken feet and pigs' heads

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A very hot day today, 33-35 deg C. It gets very hot in the afternoons but at 6.00pm, when the sun sets, it becomes a lot cooler. Most nights I have been in just shirt sleeves but last night I had to wear a sweatshirt.
Dali was a very nice place, very touristy, with lots of vigour, lights, live music in the streets and 100s and 100s of shops. I bought 4cds of traditional music and some small gifts.I am very worried about the weight for the plane.
Been to a Bai village, a minority people with their own small kingdom. They had a market selling spices, live fish swimming about in buckets, live chickens, chicken feet and pigs' heads. It was a very interesting place. Most of the population are very friendly and the young people especially, come up to talk to us to practise their English. In the village market we were pestered greatly by sellers, sadly because of the weight restriction on the plane we could not purchase much, what we did buy we haggled well for and got the price down. It's a good job I like Chinese food as that is all we get. The meals consist of many different meats, although we are never told what type it is, we could be being served dog for all we know! Talking of dogs, there are lots and lots of them in the street. We have been chased by some fierce ones on more than one occasion, and I forgot my dog taiser which I bought for India, fortunately we have been able to out pace them on our bikes.
China is certainly a mixture of two very different cultures: on the one hand it is full of modern technology and on the other very primitive and poor. Today we have passes literally 1000s of workers in paddy fields, digging and planting by hand along a 6 mile stretch of road, on the plains.They work extremely hard with only a very few hand rotivators. Along the road side we see lots of lovely wild flowers and the occasional cactus.
The lorries and cars belch out diesel fumes and smoke all the time, my lungs are going to be wrecked. We have seen crashed wagons at the side of the road and wrecked motor bikes and scooters. Although quite hair raising, it is not as wild and busy as India. We are moving north now and the area is very different. Saturday night in Eryuan.

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Comments

[josephine]

chicken feet & pigs heads
You will be able to rustle up some different menus when you get home! Or maybe it will be Beans on toast for a while. Hope your stomach stands up to it. Watching your blog everyday, like to know where you are, and what you have seen. Josephine xx