Next we headed west onto the Yunnan Province, our first stop the old city of Dali. The first thing we noticed was how much cooler it was - due to our increased altitude of around 1900m. For the first time in Asia i actally could wear long sleves and trousers comfortably without aircon - i loved it!

It was still hot in the day though and let my guard down - a bike ride round the nearby villages left me badly sunburnt! The day was really fun - i went on my own, gettting completely lost again - you wouldn't think finding Erhai Hu - a giant lake 250 sq-km in size - could be so hard to find! I spend a lot of my time trying to communicate with locals that i was trying to find the lake which normally ended with them pointing me back to the city where i had come from! Again getting lost made for a fun day and i eventually found the lake by myself at about 5pm!

Another day me and Teague did the 2 hour hike up Zhonghe Shan, one of the mountains next to the town to get a great views of the lake. Blaming the altitude for our breathlessness we opted to take the chair lift down!

On the 9th Yunnan was hit by an M=5.5 Earthquake, with the epicentre quite close to Dali. The town was fine but the building really shook! At first I thought Teague was rocking my chair from behind until everyone ran outside! From a geophysics point of view i guess it was quite exciting but also a bit scary! Thats 2 quakes ive been in now!

xxxx