Below Belief

We rise late to a relaxing breakfast in the ‘ethnic’ Cafe-with-no-name in the gardens. Overlooking the trees and bamboo pavillions from comfy wicker chairs and sipping mango juice in the sun you could imagine yourself to be anywhere beautiful in the world – even paradise.
It is sometimes hard to believe that Dali is still China. That is until you get out and about. We hire two mountain bikes and head off in a northerly direction to see how far we can get. The scenery is rice paddies with a backdrop of mountains and a touch of humanity provided by the peasants tilling their fields. It would be refreshingly rural were it not for the noisy tractors and trucks which pound past us on the less than smooth road. We pass a huge petrol tanker which has recently crashed off the road into a paddie field and exploded. The wreckage is blackened and has left a scorched patch of rice which looks totally out of place in the near-perfect and so well-tended patches surrounding it. The accident must have left a few peasants cursing, as well as the driver dead, we imagine.
Eventually, some 25km down the road, and by now rather saddle sore, we come across a neat little village with impressive Bai architecture and wonderful backstreets with donkeys and small children screaming “hello, hello!o. The road leads down to the shores of an enormous lake. We stop at the lake side to tend our sores. The Chinese bikes are unfortunately too small and very unforgiving on these bumpy, half-cobbled streets. So we sit there, watch some fishermen mending a boat and fall asleep. By 5pm, having done little else, it is time to be making our way home. It is then we realise the true stupidity of our plan ‘to see how far we can go’. On hired bikes, however far you go, you always have to go back. In our case that means another 25km. Getting back on the bikes the saddlesores are very bad indeed begin to curse the whole situation. Cycling becomes incredibly painful and we struggle back only by forcing ourselves on for fifteen minute slots and then stopping to stretch off.
Back at the ranch, a sit down and a hot bath at ‘Jim’s Place’ is the only thing to bring us back to reality. Bizarre but very pleasant. Lying in hot water, gradually loosening up I suffer a terrible moment of home sickness and wish I were at home in a comfy bed with people who speak my language. But it soon passes.
When Llew and I walk out of the baths after a half hour soak we are weak as kittens and don’t quite know how to spend the rest of the evening. We have two new room-mates which is good because Llew and I have mostly exhausted our topics of conversation and manage to communicate now by a series of grunting noises (which will come in handy back at college). Our room mates are both long distance loners. Jeff is a Chinese-American on a year out in China from University, to learn the language. Mark is a non-talkative Englishman from Taiwan. We go out for a beer and more food with Jeff but by 11pm the unprecedented exercise of the day is telling and there are yawns all round. Time for a very restful day tomorrow.

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