Visiting Dali was not on the itinery to Beijing. Thanks go to Paddy because it was a great stop! Dali is a small, ancient, walled city. Entering through the impressively imposing (I'm running out of adjectives to describe how nice China is) South gate, our first sight was the heaving throngs of Chinese tourists. It may be low season here but that does not seem to go for the Chinese, who arrive en mass, all sporting matching baseball caps being led by a tour guide dressed in local traditional Bai dress carrying a flag (and we thought it was Americans who had the monopoly on cheese!). I guess with a population of 700 million the difference between low season and high season does not appear obvious to us Brits. The streets are teaming with tourists, souvenir
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