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I have had such a good time in Dali! It is such a small little town that I am surprised there is so much to do. The Old Town is a small walled area 15k away from the New Town and that is where everyone stays. The Old Town is a grid of cobbled shopping streets with cafes on every corner. This area is famous for it's batik, so it is sol along with tie-dye in all the little shops. Mom and I have had quite a time with the vendors here.
On our first day in the city, after getting ourselves familiar with the old town, we decided to go up Cangshan Mountain to check out the temples and hike around a bit. Well, we took the cable car up the mountain which was beautiful, but I could have used one of the ever-present umbrellas to keep the sun off, oy vey it was hot. At the top though, we went straight to the first temple. We were looking around admiring the architecture, as good travellers should, when one of the monks (?) there offered us each a stick of insence. We said no, but he insisted, saying it was a 'gift.' At that, I was immediatly wary, knowing that you don't usually get things for free in places like this. But mom picked up her stick, so I followed suit. A monk inside immediatly banged a little gong and motioned us inside, had us kneel and bow three times with our insence, banging his gong the whole time. I had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing, not out of disrespect, but just because I knew where this was going, and what did they think? That they were converting us to Buddhism with a scented burning stick? I don't think so. The first monk then returned, separated the two of us and sent us each to a separate corner where we each found another monk, each of them prepared to lead us through a mini fake ceremony that of course ended with us "donating" money to the Temple and receiving "good luck" from the Buddha. We walked out of there and could once again laugh freely. I was just exasperated. But it had to happen eventually, I'm sure.
Day two we decided to rent bikes and ride along the lake. Well, though those were our intentions, we found after an hour and half that you can get very CLOSE to the lake, but you can't actually ride along it. We ended up checking out 2 or 3 roads going perpendicular to the lake instead. This wasn't a problem in the end because those roads were extremely rural and were lined with rice paddies with locals hard at work among them in their straw hats and baskets strapped to their backs. The clouds overhead, with the blue mountains behind made the rice even greener. It was the most "Asian" scenery I have seen yet, with the exception of maybe the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. It was here, away from the city atmosphere, just a couple blocks away really, that we experienced some of what China really is. I wouldn't have missed that ride for anything.
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