Dali, Yunnan

Today was our last riding day. Back on the busy, polluted, but never boring main road to Dali...

We rode past farmland sandwiched between the Cang Shan mountain range to the West and Er Hai lake to the East - but, again, we could not see the high mountains due to the cloudy weather. It was the only day that we actually rode together as a group, because it was only about 50 km, flat and straight - perfect for drafting behind our locomotive, Walti. We only stopped along the way once for a snack of Xizhou (local baba bread, filled with rose paste).

The three pagodas (San Ta) - the oldest of which dates to 800 AD and is 70 m high - are located on the grounds of the former Chongwen Si buddhist monastery (destroyed in the Qing Dynasty), and offered a fitting backdrop for our group photo. In fact, our presence provoked a lot of Chinese tourists to have their photos taken with us, so it was quite a scene...

Dali is a Bai minority city, which is famous for its Ming Dynasty Old Town, which is a cobbled pedestrian zone of old stone houses 4 square km, now housed by shops, cafes, restaurants and massage parlors.

After having experienced Lijiang and Shaxi, the most memorable part of Dali Old Town was probably the food. We ate very well on the entire trip, but there was a special Dali dish that we all loved, finely sliced, incredibly tender and perfectly seasoned pork slices presented on a ¨bridge¨ of ribs.