Wow, this is my first entry in about a year!
Just to finish where the other entries left off... I got ill in Dali for about a week, with fever and intestinal problems I mostly stayed in the filthy beds that they had there.
After I was partially recovered, we were considering visiting Tibet and "shangrila" but realized that we didn't have enough time, and you had to be more organized to arrange a guide, and travel permission to go there. Instead, we went hiking for three days through the mountains (Leaping Tiger Gorge) apparently there is one spot that is narrow enough for a Tiger to 'leap across'.. (maybe 50 feet? ), The entire hike was extremely beautiful with the famous Yangtze River below us and the varied scenery that was truly breathtaking... There were a few farmers' houses which were opened up to travellers along the way, and that is where we stayed.. one farmer even kept bees, so we feasted on honey and roasted walnuts :) A few times on the semi-treacherous trail we would see men on loaded horses or donkeys coming the other way. If the animals weren't loaded, they would be racing at really fast speed on the winding path of the cliff! In the evenings, it was very dark and silent, since we were so many miles away from everything. (I think the farmers communicated by a some sort of radio) It was a perfect time to reflect and think about things, and I've never seen so many stars in my life! Surrounded by mountains, far away from the city lights... so nice.
We also woke up to the farming families working in the fields on the slopes... All the places we stayed in also had delightful puppies / or dogs that I spent a lot of time playing with. Now I know you might ask, well, if you were in this wonderful place with so much to see, why did you spend so much time playing with puppies? First of all, i like puppies. but second of all. Ivo also got sick... in the form of explosive diarrhea. Now before I left Dali, we stopped at the pharmacy and got several boxes of French medicine, "Smecta", an anti diarretic which is a white poweder that you mix with water, and it turns into a chalky-grey sludge which you drink. It probably saved my life and also Ivo's up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway, at the end, it ended near a road. The way back to civilization was also interesting because there was a restaurant/guesthouse, which had a scam in conjunction with the taxidrivers (the only way to get back) - the taxidrivers would refuse to take you unless you had had a meal at the restauraunt. I guess they got a cut of the profits... Anyway, they were also sort of scary because there was a real danger of rockslides and boulders falling down on to the road. As we were driving super fast through on the side of a mountain, in the section which indicated severe danger of rockslides, instead of looking at the road, the driver would be looking at the cliff we were travelling beside, looking for boulders. And he wasn't looking ahead to check if they were falling down (since the road is winding)-- he was looking directly beside us. Out the window where I was sitting (the front passenger!) :(
Anyway, I made it back safely.
After making it back to Beijing, I had to leave, and it was sad saying goodbye to all the friends, that I had made.. but it was also good to know that I could contact them as easily as an email or instant messenger.
