Here, we stand: four intrepid travelers in the mountains above Dali, Yunnan Province. From left to right: Maya, a grade school teacher from the Dominican Republic and college friend of . . . Lara, high school History and English teacher at KIA; Suli, teaching assistant for Jean Bannen in junior kindergarten at KIA; and your's truly. We rode horses up a very steep rocky and rutted trail with two locals leading the way on foot. Here we all are in a rocky narrow on the paved path above Dali. Maya pretends to climb the rocks. Lara closes her eyes. Suli provides a quasi-smile. And then there is me just trying my best to be cool, which does not always work very well.The trip began with an eight hour train ride. We actually missed our first train, so we took an overnight, sleeper train instead. We hopped on at about 21.00 and wound up in Dali at about 05.00 the next morning. A friendly cab driver dropped us off in front of a nice hotel, where we secured lodgings for 60kuai per head (less than $8 each). After three hours of sleep, we went out and downed some 'hundun' (like wonton soup), before hopping on our horses for the two-hour ride up the side of the mountains.
After an entire day on horseback, hiking on the paved mountain trail, and navigating downtown--trying to dodge all the people who wanted us to take their buses or wanted to be our guide--we enjoyed a pleasant meal at Sakura Inn, a trekkers hotel/restaurant that caters to westerners. Lara and Maya went to bed early, and Suli and I explored this old walled city. In the photo below, I do my best Singing in the Rain impersonation, even though I was not singing and it was not raining. Behind me is one of the old gates to Dali. It looked like the city was doing an extensive remodeling job on the old wall, restoring small sections at a time. Dali is a truly beautiful smaller city, one I would recommend anyone to visit.
This next picture is actually from earlier in the day. Suli had never ridden a horse until this moment. Being the smallest person in our group, she received the first horse that arrived. You can see Maya waiting for her horse. These pack animals looked like they could use some serious grooming. These horses are much smaller than the quarter-horses and show horses I am used to seeing in Montana. However, these little beasts sure could climb. We just had to hold on and remain calm. They did the rest. Across the four-lane highway that encircles Dali, you can see a section of restored wall. Down the hill from this wall is the old city. Beyond the old city is 'Er hai' (pronounced 'are high') lake. One can take boat tours of the this beautiful lake, but since I come from the land of Flathead Lake, I figured I could go out on a lake anytime. I wanted to go into the mountains.

In a nutshell, that was our trip to Dali. Look for photos from the extended trip to Lijiang. They will be coming next.
Here is a nice shot of one of the restored sections of the old wall. This wall was probably five yards wide. For 2 kuai, a person can walk along the restored wall. I actually saw a section of un-restored wall. I think I would not trust the un-restored section enough to walk on it. In the distance of this photo, beyond the smoke in the upper left, you may be able to see a tall pagoda rising above the city. This is not one of the famous White Pagodas. However, it is of a similar construction.