Dali is a very short flight from Kunming, only about 45 minutes in the air. On arrival at Dali airport all went smoothly until we found the taxi rank, in chaos, paralyzing the five taxis that were there. The problem was that two couples wanted to share one taxi into the city. This incensed the next taxi driver in line and he drove his cab forward to block the exit for all cabs. The shouting began between the passengers and the drivers, all in Chinese. One of the passengers then marched in front of the blocking taxi and blocked it, explaining to us in English, that she was sorry but she had all day to wait for the drivers to see reason. No one seemed interested in the fact that we were waiting for a taxi, any taxi, to take us away. In fact the other taxi drivers were out of their cars and were wholeheartedly involved in the yelling. Something happened, the four passengers huffed off to the road and the logjam was broken. We finally were able to get on our way.

We drove directly to our hotel - Jim's Tibetan Hotel - which is very conveniently located just outside the South gate of the Old Town, left our bags in our room and went to explore the old town shopping area. It is a typical frantic tourist trap with dozens of shops all selling identical items. There are some interesting items and many handicrafts done by the local minority peoples of the region, such as marble, silversmiths, leather and embroidery. Dali has a long history from the 80's (when it was opened to foreigners) of backpackers and many signs of this are evident - lots of hostels and guesthouses, much music from the Eighties everywhere and some of these expats have stayed and opened their own businesses.

We went back to our hotel and met Jim, of Tibetan origin, who runs this and also a guesthouse and hostel further down in the Old Town, with his Dutch wife. The hotel was excellent and beautifully decorated in Tibetan motif, with hanging Tibetan lampshades and painted geometric patterns on the ceiling of our room. We ate our first meal there, a delicious Tibetan goulash of yak meat, goat cheese, snow peas and cauliflower and lightly seasoned with cumin - in fact Norma liked it so much she had it two more times while we were there !!

We also met two young English women who were staying there and we agreed to book cars and travel together over the next couple of days, which worked well for all of us. The next day we all set off to visit the Yi/Muslim area, about two hours away by a mountain road which was undergoing massive reconstruction and quite exciting. Finally we descended to a small plateau and were let loose in a great local market. The town was packed and mountain people in their ethnic minority traditional dress were arriving in small horse drawn vehicles and on foot, carrying their produce in huge square baskets, with a tump rope across their foreheads, most of them from the Yi group. There were all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables and fruits, many butchers and fishmongers, bread makes making pita-like flat loaves, blacksmith selling newly made hoes and picks etc, tea sellers with sacks of local teas, a harness maker with beautifully woven horse bridles of rawhide ( he offered me a beauty for 50 yuan, about seven dollars!!! The thing stank to high heaven so Norma nixed the idea!).

We looked everywhere for the livestock market without success and went back to the car and driver. As we left town, guess where he took us. Yes - a great livestock market selling horses, cattle, water buffalo and goats, a great place for photos too.

Our next stop was an isolated Buddhist temple in the middle of a rice and corn growing area. We were the only people there and wandered through at out leisure, enjoying the statues and altars and climbing up to the top level of the pagoda for a great view over the terraces.

The driver, (who spoke no English but had obviously followed this route many times), then took us into the narrow backstreets of a small farm village where we stopped to eat at a Muslim restaurant. Of course, we did not know it was a restaurant but the large pieces of meat hanging from hooks were a clue. We would never, ever in a million years have chosen or found this place to eat, but the food turned out to be excellent (fried tofu, eggplant, thinly sliced spicy beef, egg and tomato, broad beans, cabbage, beef soup and rice and all you could drink tea). The cost for the four of us was 50Yuan = 7 Canadian Dollars! And there was lots left over.

Our last stop for the day was a walk through the rice terraces down to a Yi village. The driver left us off and pointed down the path, indicating he would wait for us by the road. We passed people working in the fields, women wearing their traditional dress, and came to a small square where an old woman invited us to sit on very tiny wooden stools and watch her embroider. We made chit chat with the children by using Norma's handy dandy Mandarin book - pointing to words and having the kids teach us how to say them. It sounded like one of Norma's classes gone wrong! I wanted to take a photo of the old lady but she indicated that it would take away part of her soul, so I had to compromise with photos of the embroidery.

The Three Tea Ceremony
Serving the tea in the cultural centre in XizhouAnother day trip by car from Dali concentrated on the Bai minority culture. Our first stop was at the Folklore Centre in the Bai village of Xizhou (admission 50 yuan). This building had a double courtyard plan, surrounded by wooden balconies on the second floor and in a large room beyond the second courtyard they demonstrated local costume, songs, dance etc in a presentation of the Three Tea Ceremony. The dialogue was only in Mandarin but the show was very visual and enjoyable, culminating in the sequential tasting of three teas - the first was bitter, the second very sweet with honey added and the third one was just right - with some honey and cinnamon.

Leaving this area we found a quiet street on the far side of the village with many traditional Bai homes. These are white courtyard homes with ornate entrances and tilework and painted designs in the gable ends. One had a crudely scrawled graffiti on the outside identifying it as The House of the General, an elderly man came down the street and invited us in. Several doors opened off the inner courtyard and he showed us his little kitchen area. Clothes hung on a clothes line across the court and a bird sang in a cage outside the old man's apartment. Several people lived in this compound, but I am not sure if they were all related.

Our next visit was to the village of Zhoucheng and a tie-dying and batik business. On one side of the courtyard there were huge vats of dye, and the yard was a mass of piles of cloth, plain and dyed in brilliant colours. In the rooms around the yard , on two floors, were thousands of finished batik pieces. The most typical were in dark blue with white patterns and suitable for tablecloths and wall hangings. In the courtyard many of the workers were working on large numbers of tie-dyed skirts in the latest fashion - maybe a big order for some retail company.

Also in the village of Zhoucheng we found the market square with a huge shade tree in the centre and an old opera stage on one side, for the itinerant Chinese opera groups that work through the villages and towns. The stalls had a large variety of fruits and vegetables and again there were many butcher stalls.

Two stalls were making potato chips in large oil-filled woks, - seasoned, warm, fresh and served in paper cones they outdid our bagged varieties by far. Beside the square there was a large open sided building which seemed to be something of a community centre, with many mainly elderly people playing cards and mahjong.

At this point we thought our tour was finished but the taxi driver, who could not speak English, produced a flyer showing some local Buddhist caves and grottos which were accessible by cable cars and asked if we would like to visit.. It was on the way back to Dali and so we agreed. The little cable cars gave us a great view of Lake Erhai and then we were into the cave tour, which was quite strenous due to the hundreds of steps linking the galleries. We had to be accompanied by a guide and she tried to move us through at a faster pace than we would have liked. We were also hard pressed by a large group of Chinese tourists behind who had a guide with a megaphone, which was quite unnecessary and shattered the peace of the caves. When we finally emerged we were on the mountainside far above the entrance and upper station of the cable car but, when the large group had charged past us and down the path, this was the special moment. The air was delightfully cool and smelt of the pines and balsam growing on the slopes around us. The view was also incredible at that height and we reluctantly walked down to catch our cable car back to the entrance.

The taxi driver had one more sight in store for us. As we approached Dali, he swung off the main road and drove us up to the perfect spot to photograph the famous Three Pagodas of Dali, dropping us off to walk and snap. Immediately women in their colourful traditional dress carrying loads of fruit on carrying poles swooped on us to try for a sale of their grapes, hairy lychees, peaches and apples. Their persistence got them a sale in the end but we didn't regret it as the fruit was excellent and refreshing at the end of a day's touring. Then it was back to the haven of Jim's Tibetan Hotel.