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Published: November 7th 2007
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Dali...
the Old Town's ramshackle old houses and flagstone streets lined with market stalls selling Nakhi skirts and embroidery, blue and white Dali batik, brass jewellery, pipes and the ubiquitous cammo sneakers and Mao hats. This place is well and truly used to tourists: every second cafe in the old town serves western food and has free internet. Little old Bai women come up to us on the street offering "smoke, hash, ganja" at any opportunity, and in fact there seemed to be a ganja touts convention happening at the table next to us at lunch yesterday, a bunch of women in Bai outfits and headwear knitting innocently away only seconds after badgering us for a sale.
We got here via Lijiang, whos Old TOwn is much like Dali only plastic wrapped squeaky clean and bursting with Chinese tour groups. In Lijiang we stayed at a family guesthouse and I met the Chinese equivalent of Jake who wasn't shy about attacking me with a power ranger mask on and his cousin who threw pieces of plastic dump trucks at us repeatedly. The house was fantastic, and the street food in Dali was also excellent. Also Mick and I jammed on a
guitar with 2 strings and an Arhu (2 string chinese violin) which we borrowed from a very snazzy looking busker. With the photos taken by passing tour groups it was kinda like being back at Ocean Park only without the pandas. Lijiang's stone streets are followed by gushing streams, which used to be the drinking water supply but now are home to hoards of goldfish, you can buy and release them for only a few kuai. The town is filled with the gentle music of water, and the crazy chatter of commerce. Hippies would love shopping in Lijiang.
We got to Lijiang over the worst road I've travelled in China, from Lige, near Lugu Lake on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan. The minibus was crowded and clearly a couple of the passengers have trouble with motion sickness. After each hour or so of horrendously bumpy twisty mountain roads we'd stop somewhere and the driver would hose down the sides of the van... Too bumpy to crochet.
Lige is a tiny Mosuo village by the beautiful Lugu Hu, at the foot of Gamu Mountain (goddess). Mosuo and Nakhi peoples are matriarchal, and there are several signs welcoming you to "women's
country". The local language is a distant relative of Tibetan. After our first ever Mosuo BBQ (sulimo = home brew wine, some kind of heart, Mosuo tofu and whole grilled eggplant with seasoning which should not be missed) Mick and I headed out to find somewhere to play music in exchange for free drinks. SOon enough we were swapping songs and sipping Jack Daniels with a bunch of Han and Mosuo people, apologising for not knowing any John Denver lyrics, being taught Chinese songs and learning great lyrics such as Ni ya gen wo chue yiu bi which I think is something like "watch out, don't upset me cos I'm much tougher than you think I am". The local custom of song duelling spilled over into our post BBQ BBQ and we swapped Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and english songs for hours, "Goma Zoige!!" which is something like "friend, drink!" and skulling shots of midstrength beer.
Next day we wandered out into the sunshine to look around and found ourselves taking a trip out to Xihae island in a canoe paddled by 2 local men. The canoes' name translates to "pig trough" and the island was much further away than we
expected, one of the guys had blisters by the time we finished. We took tea with the custodian of the island's Tibetan temple (Red Hat I think) and admired an enormous gum tree which was growing at the edge of the hill. Apparently this island was home to a famous botanist Joseph Rock for a few decades, and is now overgrown with daisies, calendula, pyrethrum, marigolds and ... a gum tree. We crushed gum leaves for the boat men and balanced on the wooden benches all the way back to Lige.
We also went out to a performance of Mosuo dance and music, which was a very energetic version of a circle/line dance to the accompaniement of a flute. This was followed by a song battle, where local Mosuo battled Chinese tourists. When one person finished, he/she was grabbed by the group of the opposite sex & culture and thrown into the air. One major distraction from the show was a Chinese tourist getting a bit carried away taking photos of a huge Labrador and didn't notice it getting friendly with his leg until everyone else had.
So... last night we went out on the town in Dali. there's no
shortage of bars, and the local pijiao is not a bad drop either. While Tegan got distracted by French women, Mick Ben and I followed the green laser in the sky to a small and dodgy vodka bar with every flavour of vodka from orange mint to "white rabbit candy" flavour. After hours of vodka shots and Jenga lessons we trudged home in the rain and have spent today watching 8 Mile, Corpse Bride and repenting.
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