Yunnan Leg Almost Over...

Am sitting in the ancient city of dali, on the 2nd level of a quaint historic building over looking the central town square, in an internet cafe. How incoherent is that?

It has been quite abit this last week... went around the mountainous bits of yunnan. Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian (tibetan: Shangri-la), and some unmentionables for security reason. Went up altitudes in excess of 4000m in getting to some of the places, and got a touch of altitude grouchiness, especially when racing up over 600 stone steps... hehe.

God's been really faithful, and we've been having wonderful weather (got a sun-burnt nose to prove it), to a few signicant spots for p-walking, and had a few divine appointments. Met the tibetans, bai, yi, lisu, hui and naxi peoples, including an orthodox jew!

Got to catch a sun-bow, climb through corn fields led by village kids, blow the shofar in the high places, visit an alpine lake, ride through the grasslands, pick edelweiss, share a room w an orthodox jew and observe him at seder, meet top local musicians and music educators, learn from a silversmith, invited to lunch by a Bai family for the traditional 3-teas, attempted cobbling and succesfully haggled.

Will post up pix when I get back home. Sapporo, here I come!!

Jesus, lau-wa-ni*!

(*bai language term)



Infamous sleeper buses


Dali


Dali East Gate


Old Dali


Two china girls


Bing's fav cafe, at stella's, Dali Old Town


Misty traveller


Sunburst over the tibetan highlands


Tibetan Grasslands at over 4000m above sea level. Horses, grass and friends.


Edelweiss


Mossy forest


Pi Ta Hai, alpine meadow and lake up in the Tibetan Highlands


Oh give me a home, where the buffalos roam...


Tibetan Lady


Two pugilists fight it out over the misty mountains


Next better player


Reflections in a mineral pool, Bai Shui Tai


Old Lijiang


Assasin on the Roof


etch-a-sketch


smile!