Dali-Yunnan province

With roughly a month behind us now, we have cycled more than 2000km in China and crossed 3 provinces before Yunnan, where we are planning to cycle another 1000km to Laos. From the thick morning fog, we are now navigating under a bright and warm sun. It feels good to wear my short sleeves again and the very attractive cyclist suntan will soon be back. We are now in Ancient Dali, a 'small' town (we are in China , all proportions are distorted) squeezed between 4000m mountains and Erhai lake, the 7th biggest in China. The scenery is really beautiful and we are stopping in the middle of that postcard landscape for 3 days, before embarking into a loop in South-West Yunnan.





As expected, the roads are more roller-coaster like and the pavement is more battered. The hairpin bends gave us a good fright when my dad drifted on wet muddy pavement going downhill at a good speed. Nothing broken. We are more cautious now and try to avoid breaking speed records.





We had our first encounters with policemen in small hotels. You can sleep in any hotel you want in China, no matter how expensive or not, the tenants have to report Aliens to the police authorities within 24 hours. Some hotels off the tourist circuit are rather inexperienced with the whole procedure, which led to various discussions in mandarin, knocks on the door in the middle of the night and police visits to make sure we were within the rules. Everything ended with smiles, and tired mornings.



Our apetite could rival the one of a pregnant women and of a lumberjack combined. Miscommunications sometimes led to extra food on the table, which did not really matter after all the kilometers and hills we cycled. China's cuisine is one of the most diversified we have tasted so far and each meal is a new discovery. The muslim hand-pulled noodles, lamb kebab, tofu stew, dried fried fish and various meat hotpots are only a sample of our sacred cyclist meals. If we sometimes feel tired, it's not because we're food deprived!



Our hability to communicate is now extended to saying a few numbers. We are slowly getting there!

Tsai Tien!