Advertisement
Published: October 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
The ride round Erhai Lake
Nunny in the zone - on the road back to Dali Just a casual ride around the lake??! Sounds lovely. 60km later and a few emotional breakdowns along the way we finally make it home. We start the day with an all you can eat buffet breakfast of 10 yuan!!! Nuts! And then hire ourselves some mountain bikes. The lower part of the old city is closely flanked with Lake Erhai, named so for it's ear shape. The other side of the city has mountains that seem perpetually covered in cloud, but have a cable car that travels about half way up. So we head to the lake where the day before Andrew had checked out the situation of ferry times etc that ran from one side of the water body to the other. As tour leader of the day we head off on our trusty steeds and make our way to the water.
Following the twisting narrow paths of the villages outside of the main drag of "Old Capital Dali" we speed through the countryside yelling "Nee How!" to the locals who all smile at us in amusement and return the greetings. Like the ancient city, the dwellings here have tried to retain their old-school architecture and have made
The ride round Erhai Lake
a funky looking bridge with Erhai (Ear shaped) lake in the background great use of the versatility of concrete rather than the red mud dark brick we've seen in other villages. We search for the ferry dock that will take us across to the "Glass pagoda" and form there we will head north on the opposite side of the lake to the village of Wase where another ferry will ship us back across to Dali.
We get slightly lost trying to find the ferry dock, and the one we get to apparantly only has a boat at 4pm (current time midday) and Andrew swaps a cigerette for information from one of the local fishermen that were drying out their nets nearby.
We're told that we need to go down the road (about kms) to another dock and take the ferry from there. So we retrace our path through the village and rice paddy fields to hit the main road and take a left further down to the dock. Yep, this place is much bigger. We buy tickets, board the ferry and head over the seas.
It seems that there was some miscommunication along the way as the ferry we were on appeared to go to an isalnd on the
The ride round Erhai Lake
On board the boat to the other side lake rather than the other side, and the captain once realising this quickly dumped us on the mainland about 10kms further south than the original destination.
Realising the time we are forced to make a speedy exit and bolt towards Wase whose last ferry back to Dali was due to leave at 3pm, two hours from now. Andrew handled this journey alot better than myself - clearly his hours on the bike at the gym has paid off - and he powers on ahead while I struggle to keep up and admire the view of the lake at the same time. Along the way we see not much in the way of traffic apart from massive blue trucks and the occassional group of donkeys that are being herded along by locals.
A few killer hills later, the rain that had been falling on Dali has come across the lake and is now hitting us. The road has been fine till this point, but intermediately has strips of dirt (now mud) and we are covered in dirt as we continue to power on. For evey up hill there is a blissful down hill and we boot down these, rain
hitting our faces and mud flying up our backs.
We reach Wase as the rain subsides, and manage to find the ferry dock on the other side of the local markets, and not a minute too soon. It's 5 to 3. What timing!
As we are negotiating a price with the ferryman, at the last minute we are denied access when a tour group climbs on board and seems to be going in the complete opposite direction. It seems that he is under the guides thumb and he was planning on making a bit of cash on the sly by taking us onboard and she was just a cow and put her foot down. No worries, there's another boat over there he points.
Sailing away, we do not realise that that was our last chance of getting back to Dali by boat. The other vessel will only take us directly across the lake, to a point 25kms north of Dali. Well, what can you do? It's the only other boat in the area. So again, we negotiate a price and load our bikes onboard. About 10mins later the lady of the boat points at a watch face
The ride round Erhai Lake
Taking a breather at the gates to some random village that currently shows the time 3.05pm, she then motions down the face to 3.25pm. Ok, 20mins, we can do that.
We wander around the markets admiring a few items until the proprietors realise that we literally have no money after we paid for the boat ride. We wander back to the boat and enquire as to when we will be leaving. The man on the boat holds up his hand extending the no. 5. Ok, another 5 mins.
It is not till an hour has passed that it dawns on us that what they have been saying the whole time is that '5' really means 5pm. We're not going to get across to the other side till at least 5.30 - 6pm. Crap. We're going to have to cycle back in the dark.
Trying not to get too depressed by this, we entertain the cute little bub on board that is eating what looks like the most delicious piece of bread we've ever seen. Did I fail to mention that we haven't eaten for hours, and now have no money to buy any food either? IS it wrong to steal from a baby?
After going through
a myriad of emotions and trying to dry our soaking clothes out before the sun disapears, the market slowly packs up and is loaded onto the boat with us. We head off across the lake, hit the village on the other side and climb back onto our bikes.
My god. The pain! The agony! No wonder I hate bikes. My ass is KILLING me!! I grit my teeth as we head over the cobblestone paths towards the main road. Travelling through the vegetable fields and rice paddies, I cannot afford the time to admire them as the sun is setting quite rapidly around us.
We make it to the main road and head south. The only saving grace at this point in time is that the road is smooth and it is flat. Andrew lets me go up ahead and set the pace, this is probably best as I would otherwise continue to fall further behind, not unlike Virgil on the hills of Halong Bay.
At one point I stop. I can't go on, my ass is hurting sooo much. I give up. This sucks.
Andrew humours me and lets me whinge, readjusts my seat, and
The ride round Erhai Lake
Nunny on the tour de Erhai we continue on. I get into the zone and power on for about an hour or so. I never look up from the road ahead of me. In my head I have gone through the song "99 Bottles of beer on the wall" 3 times by now. Finally our turn comes up on the right. I break down. I actually cryout in pain as my bum lifts off the seat. It hurts to sit on, it hurts to get off. I'm tired and emotional and although the sign says 3kms, I cannot ride another metre.
So I get off. I start to walk. It is now dark and frankly nothing can get me back on the bike. Andrew lets me walk for about a km, then convinces me that it's so close we should just ride it. I nearly stubbornly say no..... but I get back on.
We arrive down the main street. I am imagining that strangers are cheering me on across the invisible finish line. I am exhausted, filthy, wet and cold.
We return our bikes, reclaim our deposit and wald to the nearest lush restaurant where we blow it on the best meal and
The ride round Erhai Lake
Muddy but made it... halfway at least bottle of red I think I've ever had the pleasure of inducing. We are so contented and satisfied by the end of the meal, our bodies ache and we can think of nothing better than the hot shower that awaits us back at the hotel.
We've just got to get there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.215s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 16; qc: 98; dbt: 0.1093s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Uncle Chop Chop
Monty King
you guys!!
you just involve yourselves in the funniest shit dont you? one of the best blogs yet