Dali

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We arrived having been on the night train in Dali at 7:00. Well actually the station in New Dali which is butt ugly.

We caught a Mini bus to our hotel which was right in the centre of Dali old town. The rooms werent ready yet so Locjie gave us a quick tour of the very picturesque old town before heading to a local eatery for some dumplings. The ate upstairs which was half cafe and half someones bedroom. The dumplings were excellent and I must have eaten about 12 of them.

Afterwards to kill time, while the rooms were being prepared me and Nick went to check out the bell tower (which in olden times was rung once in the morning to tell people when to start work and then again at the end of the day so they knew when to stop.)

We also went to check out the city wall gate and walked along a bit of the city wall itself (but unfortunatly that bit had been reconstructed and was brand new).

The sun was out at this point and it was also time to head back to the hotel and check in.

Hotel again was lovely.

While getting ready I had a bit of a hairy moment when after flushing the loo the water started to rise instead of lower. PANIC!!
By the time I found someone the water was puring out all over the floor. But the little Chinese lady that I found did a grand job of waiding through to fix it and then clean up the mess.

That afternoon, myself, Mick, Larry (funny Canadian), Harry and Bridget went for a 10k hike in the Cang Shan mountains. Despite being rainy the views were spectacular. But we did get caught out by a hugh rain storm at the end (was forced to by a purple poncho from some lady.)

In the evening we all met up for dinner at a Tibetan restaurant.

Tiered from the walk and train I decided to have an early nights sleep.

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