We arrived in Dali Old City - finally, and the following day the sun came out. With Stiffler, we rented some bicycles and decided to tour the countryside. Our first stop was the 'Three Pagodas', but not realising the exorbitant price of entry, we gave it a miss and viewed them from afar. Good enough for us. Believe me, in China there are plenty of pagodas! We continued 18 km, and on the way we came across a market where we sat and watched the people. Some great, weathered faces, funny hats and toothless smiles. This fabulous guy was curious while we were getting Martin's backpack repaired for the 6th time at a little shoe repairman at curbside. He came up stared, laughed and smiled this great grin. How could I resist not taking his picture! He loved looking at his picture too as if he were a supermodel!! He was just so cheerful and pleased to see us.
We parted ways and continued up the road to Xizhuo (pronounced 'She Jo'). Riding through all the fields, the local Bai people were either planting rice or harvesting wheat. When they gathered the wheat, they laid it all out on the road, we think so that vehicles would help thresh the grain from the stems. It was tough to ride through and you had to clear your chain of wheat after each pass.
After a wrong turn, we ended up in a man's front yard right beside the lake. He couldn't have been friendlier, and welcomed us to have a drink with him. We sat in his drive way on little wooden stools trying to communicate. Through our broken Chinese and him pointing to our phrase book, he invited us to dinner. How sweet was that!! It would have been great, but we still had to ride back the 20+ km to Dali City before dark. Mr. Li was such a sweet man and Michelle wanted to take him home! So after such a nice afternoon we were reminded how much we liked the people of China. Good to be back! *Stub and Mush
No comments:
Post a Comment