Dali,
China
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Dali's crammed with bars, tourist shops and drug selling locals. Despite the huge backpacker draw we managed to stumble upon an (apparently) annual and seemingly authentic torch festival. After arrving with some skepticism, I was blown away by the sheer pyromania of the event. Handfuls of salt peter launched into the fires created huge balls of light and flame. We became a bit of a target for the locals when a man weilding a flaming branch made it his mission to single every last leg hair off our bodies, all in good humour of course. Bertie realised how myths about the "white man" come about when we started a ritual of leaping the flames and running around the bonfires screaming with the probably equally drunk locals.
After the festival wound down, and the monsoon downpoor subsided we headed off to a party outside town till the early hours. More fire there, including fire poi, so I got to show off my very limited set of tricks while succeding in singing even more hairs.
