We arrived in Dali at 0430, 2h ahead of schedule. Thankfully we were able to go straight to our guest house and climb into bed for a couple of hours of warmth and rest.
Our guest house was situated a short walk from the old town walls. Our street was lined with little alcove shops which were predominantly woodworking shops... so as you can imagine... Jack was in heaven! Each shop appeared to be slightly different in its function. There were chair makers, then carvers, then polishers etc.
The old town was touristy but still quaint with cobbled streets lined with shops.
The afternoon was spent horseriding up into the mountains that surround Dali - the poor horses were exhausted by the time we reached the top! We climbed to an altitude of ~2300m to a temple. Interestingly on the way up the mountain we noticed lots of graves/ headstones. This is apparently a common practice because of Chinese fengshui - it is good fengshui to have a mountain to your back and to look out over water. (The other side of Dali is an extremely large [100km dam] inland lake). It was a great afternoon but our bottoms were very happy to be off the horses by the time the day was over.
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