As we weren't leaving for the market tour until 9am this morning, we had a little bit of a sleep in although dad usually wakes early regardless. I desperately tried to get a bit of blogging done before we went off to breakfast quite late and only had 20 minutes left. This proved to be enough as the breakfast was very poor. No warm eggs of any description just cold boiled ones, and no bacon or western fare that we had come to expect. There was juice and cofee to which we had to help ourselves and we cooked some toast and had that with jam. After brekkie we boarded our bus and were taken on a long drive to an area to the north of the city where there were the most incredible markets selling everything from trinkets and souvenir type stuff to beautiful fresh vegetables and fruits, meats and spices. It was fabulous and we took heaps of photos. We then walked through to what was once the home of a rich person but which would have become the property of the government after the land revolution. Here we were treated to the Three Teas ceremony and dancing by the Bai people who were very colourful in their brightly coloured garb. The tea ceremony involved having three different teas served to us, firstly the bitter tea, then the sour tea and then finally the sweet tea, the latter being really nice as it had ginger and honey added to it! After the show we returned to our coach and then went to a tie dying place where we were shown how they do the tie dying proces and then had a look at their wares. I bought a couple of scarves, one for Sue and one for mum but I paid too much! Silly tourist! I didn't calculate the exchange correctly!

After that we had lunch at a little restaurant which was ok, but not wonderful and the toilets were abysmal, but we have come to expect a wide variety of conditions with repect to the sanitation and reallly are prepared for anything. I do feel sorry for the women though! Not many western style dunnies around here outside of the big hotels!

After lunch we drove an unexpectedly long way (around an hour) to the dock. Along the way we passed many fields of crops of all descriptions but particularly soy beans, lettuce and cabbage. On arrival at the dock we boarded our boat for the trip across Lake Er Hai to a little island. Unfortunately, the weather was not kind to us and it was overcast and misty so it was not a good day for photos. We passed an isthmus with an interesting pagoda on it and then landed on the island near a little village. The village had loads of fish, shellfish and other produce for sale at little stalls as well as the usual array of souvenir items. I saw some very strange things here including a plucked and ready to be cooked cormorant, some small birds of some description, live eels, live fish of several different varieties, live shellfish, small freshwater lobsters (live), crabs and live shrimps which women were happily threading onto skeweres ready for roasting over barbecues fired by coal which they blew on to heat up with small hand cranked things that looked like blow dryers! I bought a hand embroidered apron for Y10 (doing my bit for the local economy) about $1.50.

We left the island and returned to the mainland then drove back to the hotel and had another brief respite before heading back to the old town this time entering via the south gate which meant we had to walk right through the main shopping area to get to the same restaurant as the night before which everyone was happy about exept that we were all a bit uncetain as tonight we were going to be served western style food! Anyway the walk throught the old town was wonderful and I took heaps of photos and we bought some stuff from a lovely little leather goods place. Dad bought me my Christmas present, a bag you'll be happy to know Sue, and he bought a couple of things before we went to the restaurant and enjoyed (thoroughly) a meal of Yak steak and a sort of vegetable pizza and a type of coleslaw salad, followed by chocolate cake! Delicious! We returned to the hotel and had a couple more drinks before retiring and I caught up on one more blog and photos.