Dali Gu Cheng not Xia Guan

The minibus dropped us off right in the middle of old town. We looked at the place the Israeli girls told me about, but it sucked as well so we decided that their information was unreliable. I found a place way out of the main touristy part of town with very strange, but new bathrooms. Guesthouse #7 was quiet and out of the way. They don't really speak any English, but if you speak Chinese the price goes down by 20%. The bathrooms are enclosed in transparent glass walls which makes for interesting toileting or a shower show if you have a friend that is so inclined. The next day we moved out to Er Hai Lake to the Dragon Fly Garden. This place is run by a couple "Lao Wais" in conjunction with a Chinese family. The Whitey's run the bar and western food, but the Chinese people run the guest house, Chinese food and of course, laundry. LOL Dali must be the place to have interesting bathrooms. Here they had an ultra modern computer controlled shower with a rainfall shower, regular shower head and vertical jets with a radio, lights and fan. Unfortunately, there was only enough water pressure for the regular shower head and then only at times. Good idea, but not practical in China with well water as your water source. The room had an incredible view of the mountains and a very comfortable bed. The lake was a bit disappointing as there was no lake side path to walk along. All we could find was a land bridge that led out to a house where this guy and everyone around him tried to get us to go Cormorant Bird fishing. This type of fishing is where you take a poor bird with a ring around it's neck so it can't swallow the fish it's catching and send it out to do your dirty work. I didn't think I could take part in this flagrant abuse of animals so we took a pass. The Trance festival wasn't for a few days so we had to find stuff to do in the mean time. A local girl told us some vague directions on how to find a mushroom trail that led up the mountain via a stream. The path was difficult to find, but it was fun for me bounding back and forth across the stream up the mountain. Finally just before we gave up, we found a way out of the creek and onto the mushroom trail. Unfortunately, we were pretty tired already and didn't make it all the way up the mountain. My friend decided that it was easier to walk thru the creek instead of risking the jumps I was taking so her feet were frozen and soaked. We weren't even sure if there was a lookout above all the trees. We stopped at a small clearing that offered a nice view of the old town and the surrounding countryside and called it a draw. (anyone interested in finding this trail should take #2 bus to the end and ask the driver to go 1 more stop to the Financial College instead of Dali University or just walk. The path starts at the end of this road. You can dance up the creek like we did or just walk up the fire road until you cross a bridge that leads to the mushroom trails and up the mountain) There was a 30Y park usage fee, but we didn't see anyone around so we didn't have to pay. There was a guard when we returned, but we just walked by him. The next day, we decided to go to a small town on a different part of the lake. Xizhou is an example of getting there is 90% of the fun. It's a nice place to ride a bike to, but not really a great place to visit. It has a bunch of old mansions that they've opened up to the public for viewing with a hefty tourist admission fee. The only thing that was interesting was taking a horse/mule drawn carriage/cart to the lake. While we were aimlessly wandering around town a guy convinced us that we should go with him and Donkey to the lake. We didn't really even want to go, but he kept dropping his price down to what we thought was too cheap not to go. (15Y) It turns out that he could have even gone lower. I met some people that got him down to 8Y before they relented to go. Sorry, that one ran a bit long.

Fingers of God

Turning Chinese, I Really Think So

Dali at Night

Dali South Gate

Room with a View

Cormorant Fisherman

Traditional Minority Mobile Phone

View from High Atop Dali Uni

End of the Road?

Tongue of Er Hai Lake

Expensive Pagada