Giant spiders and monstrous cement works!

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Had another very good day with temperatures at 30 deg +, and I am still slapping on the sun screen. Have been on the roof top terrace of the Hiadong East Sea Resort hotel and spent time watching a spider that was at least 2 and a half inches in diameter, in fact China seems populated by huge spiders! The town is 2100m above sea level.
Rode about 43 miles today, it was difficult, with a 10 kilometer climb, I was almost (but not quite) in bottom gear! The ride down was great and there at the bottom was the most monstrous cement works I have ever seen, it had 3 kilns. I imagine some of the cement from there finds its way to Britain, as we have started importing Chinese cement.
Had coffee in a flea infested cafe this morning, thankfully the hotel is good, although to get to it, we had to clamber over a building site, as they are literally building a new hotel right next to ours. The hotel is situated on the edge of a lake with great views across it. On the edge of the town they are building a dual carriage way and there was dust and dirt everywhere. They were drilling holes by hand to put charges in for blasting and hundreds of Chinese workers were milling about with wheelbarrows.
I have taken lots of portrait type photos, the younger people are very bonny and the older country folk have very brown, leathery, wrinkled, weather worn faces, full of character.
China itself is moving on a pace, especially in the cities, however there are still many, many very poor people. The government do not tax the country folk nor do they make them pay for education, which they do in the cities, this is to encourage them to stay in the country.
Off to Dali tomorrow

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