 |
| Old Town wall and Cangshan Range |
On
Sunday morning the weather was sunny and getting warmer. We had arranged to
meet a blog buddy at a restaurant called Kikuya not far from the West
Gate of Old Town in the afternoon. The area was quieter than Fuxing Road, less touristy and somewhat shabby and run down looking. In the meantime we continued
exploring. After entering through South Gate we found
that we could climb some steps up to the top of the wall and the upper story of the gate itself and got a
semi-bird's-eye view of the whole area from the Cangshan mountains to the west and Erhai Lake to the east, all the way to North Gate at the other end of Fuxing Road, about a
kilometer and a half away.
 |
| Fuxing Road - North Gate (orange roof) |
 |
| looking east to Erhai Lake |
 |
| young Bai women in traditional garb |
We
were beginning to get a sense of the vitality of the local people and ethnic Bai culture as well as their colorful costumes. Although many of the
traditionally and colorfully clad young women are there for
attracting tourists (they will pose for pictures with you if you wish), many women still wear less ornate versions of
the traditional garb.
 |
embroidered headwear of this
tie-dye worker is typical of Bai women |
 |
| locally grown food is varied and abundant |
This
area is still very much an agrarian society. The food grown locally
is amazing in its abundance and variety. There is a vibrant, noisy,
smelly, colorful market with produce laid out in the open in stalls
on the ground tended either by merchant middlemen or by the farmers
themselves who haul their produce to market in time honored ways and
sell it themselves either in the market or along the streets and
roads in and outside the city.
 |
| fruit and vegetable market |
 |
| silver smith |
There
are probably hundreds (if not thousands) of small shops selling all
kinds of goods, from taffy to tea, silver, jade, shoes, clothing of
all types, trinkets, restaurants everywhere with the constant smell
of food and occasional whiffs of sewer in your nostrils—hurly-burly,
bustle and hustle.
 |
| pulling taffy |
 |
| various colorful souvenirs |
 |
| meat market |
 |
| Mr. S. - a chain smoker |
 |
| Kikuya |
We
met our blog buddy at the Kikuya restaurant in the early afternoon as
prearranged on the Internet. Mr. S. is a Japanese man in his 60s who
lives in Dali and is a good source of information about the town and
surrounding area. We met him at the restaurant and had lunch and
exchanged travel gossip and learned a bit about Dali. I got up to go
to the loo at one point and came back LMAO. I learned
something quite unexpected about Dali. The sewage system in some
areas is inadequate to handle solid waste and you must not defecate
or use toilet paper in the commode. A sign on the wall in the toilet
was blunt and to the point. Mr. S. explained, straight-facedly, about
the inadequacies of the local plumbing and that you could go to a
designated toilet up the street if you needed to. It turns out that this is a common problem in many older communities (although referred to more delicately).
 |
a kinder, gentler reminder
(and cheaper, too) |
 |
the four characters on top say,
literally "large stools are prohibited" -
the "fine" is a surcharge for unblocking the toilet |
On
Sunday morning the weather was sunny and getting warmer. We had arranged to
meet a blog buddy at a restaurant called Kikuya not far from the West
Gate of Old Town in the afternoon. The area was quieter than Fuxing Road, less touristy and somewhat shabby and run down looking. In the meantime we continued
exploring. After entering through South Gate we found
that we could climb some steps up to the top of the wall and the upper story of the gate itself and got a
semi-bird's-eye view of the whole area from the Cangshan mountains to the west and Erhai Lake to the east, all the way to North Gate at the other end of Fuxing Road, about a
kilometer and a half away.
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