Dali

The only reason we went to dali and not Leijang which is a similar probably more pretty and older is that we were told we could go there and get some draw, we were not disapointed.

thhe bus ride took just over 5 hours and thats only because our driver was some nutcase and managed to take what was probably the worst 'tarmac' road in Yunnan. he also liked to stop off at random places to pick up people at the side of the road - not hookers. when we got to dali we checked into a place called friend's hostel's where we got a nice bed each sharing with one other guy in the room for only a quid a night (!). Afterwards we went for a pretty average meal, the town was deserted which was wierd but we knew that there was a street where there were somethings. Eventually we stumble across a place called Bad Monkey, a place that Hong Kong Matt recommended to us as a cool place run by some Brits and yanks where u can chill out, smoke zoot, drink beer and listen to the reggae music. we only had about 60 cwai between us so we just got a few beers and a shisha. a few joints got passed around and i asked how much a hash bar about 2 inches would cost and got told 100. ok cool i'll come back tomorrow night. another thing we got told was that the local old women (Bai pronounced bi) sell it to you in the street, the half owner of bad monkey said 'when i heard there were bi women selling drugs in the street i was like Dali here i come!'. we were still quite dubious over this but the next day after getting some money out the bank this old bai lady comes up to me and asks if i want a bit of 'smokey smokey' i was liek yeh cool, so she took me back to her house, i would normally got to a drug dealer's house but whats a old chinese lady gonna do. but she goes under her bed and gets out this shoebox of goodies, sticky green, sticky brown, dry hash, a bag of stems and seeds, which she points out to me is very cheap (really...). first of all she tries to sell me an 8th of sticky brown for about 400 (26 quid) but i end up leaving with an 8th of stickiest of icky green for 100 about 7 GBP, sick one. after that i literally got propersitioned 10-15 times, madness. apart from smoking draw and listening to reggae music, we did a massive 60km bike ride around the lake. to ste ourselves up for it we went to the tibettan cafe to have a big breakfast. the first half was spent along the main road but the second half we road around through villages and along the lakeside through all the rural land. pierre did it easy but i had such bad chafe and my saddle sore was unparralled, anus and taint still hurting 2 days later. the bus ride home was a lot smoother as the drivewr wasnt mental and drove on real roades and didnt pick any randomer up along the way ended up being abot 45 minutes shorter.

Update on yesterday, as u might know me and pierre are back in kunming and getting the train to chengdu tonight. others of you might know that there are tibettan riots in the shizuan province in china, the capital being chengdu with its large tibettan population. luckily me an pierre know a shop in kunming that sells knifesticks and tazers and riotgear. wish me luck, thsi might be my last post EVER.