Ruth's feeling for snow...

Hi there, shitty weather here in Zhongdian so it must be time to do some blogging. Dali and Lijiang comin' at cha...


Dali was a strange town. It was like a mini-inland version of Byron Bay complete with bad doof doof music and people trying to sell you pot all the time. The old town where we were was a walled city which was kind of cool but as with most of China it is under a constant state of construction, mainly tearing down old buildings to build new replicas of the old buildings. Seemed pretty stupid to me but the mountains surrounding the town lent itself to some dramatic light effects.


You would never believe it but growing up in Wollongong, Ruth had never seen snow. If you look closely at this picture you can see the tiniest bit of white on the top of that mountain and this is the first snow Ruth has ever seen.


As such, we had to get the snow into every photo we took even at the expense of this 9th century pagoda. Yeah the pagoda was ok but what about the frickin' snow...


Behind those pagoda's was a series of newer temples that featured my favourite Buddhist icon, Rock Buddha. If you look closely, you can see he's crushing some poor mortal underfoot with his awesome rock power.


This is Ruth sitting in her favourite Cafe Jack's relishing her first snow sighting while refining her "satisfied" look for her next beer commercial.


So that was Dali, lots of doof doof, construction and snow. Believe it or not, these people are traditional dancing to the Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up.


Anyhow, we then went to Lijiang which had a bigger mountain with more snow on it conveniently placed at the end of the main street of the old town. You can imagine what that amount of snow did for Ruth, her brain nearly exploded.


We thought we'd take in some local culture and saw the Naxi Orchestra, a band that played traditional Chinese music which survived the cultural revolution by the sheer tenacity of the musicians who buried their instruments underground when the red guard came a-knockin'. Rock Buddha's power courses through their vains.


You gotta give it up for guys in their 80's still playing. Mick n' Keef have nothing on them. Sadly, the group's leader recently had a stroke but he still had the rock power to get up and play a few tunes. Awesome.


Lijiang has a famous well in the city which if you drink the water from it, it will give you good luck and prosperity. However, seeing some of the stuff that went into the water (spit, baby shit), I thought I'd take my chances without having a sip.



Anyhow, Lijiang was pretty. That's about it really.

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Remember how I said China got really good, it basically starts after Lijiang so you'll have to wait 'til later. For the April 13ers, Happy Birthday Big D, Happy Birthday Ruth's Mum Geraldine. We're thinking of ya.