Dali in the Downpour
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2007
1
41
58
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
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Dali,
China
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The market was great, filled with fascinating people and products ranging from fresh chillies to fish, veggies to brown sugar and all sorts of unrecognizable other things.
For the first time in China we were actually taken to meet some local people, these from the Bai people who live in houses around a courtyard. We learnt that usually there will be three to four families living around each courtyard. Before Mao's "Liberation" each courtyard would be owned by a single family but that was changed to be a few families per courtyard. You can tell the number of families by counting the electricity metres at the front door.
Mao's "Liberation" was intended to close the gap between the rich and the poor. I wander what he would think of today's China where that gap has grown wider than it has probably every been before and getting even wider?!
We met a wonderful, sprightly and fascinating old lady in her eighties who reminded us of my late granny. She was continuously busy cleaning, cooking, doing stuff and telling us stories. She said she was too old for photos so instead we took a photo of the courtyard she lives in, full of flowers, plants, chillies, birds in a cage and spotlessly clean.
Another resident of the courtyard, an elderly man, came over to inspect our photos of the market, village and their courtyard. His comment was along the lines of "different eyes find beauty in different things".
Just after we left the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down, it's late in the rainy season but clearly not the end! We spent the next few hours, where we are now, sitting upstairs in the "Ice Island Café" on Foreigners Street drinking Yunnan coffee and having a lunch of pancakes. Not a bad way to pass the rainy afternoon.
In the evening we caught the hotel shuttle into town and wandered around the "Foreigners Streets", there are two of them, until we found somewhere Annie recognised from the guide books. We had a delicious Tibetan meal with some local beer before heading back to the hotel.
Tomorrow morning we have yet another early flight, we are heading off to Kunming to see the Stone Forest.
Comments
Thanks for updates
Dear Jonathan & Annie We are following your travelogue with great interest Delighted you enjoyed Rosh Hashanah with Jo & DJ See you back here soon Best regards Lionel & Natalie