Can you please pass the Toilet Paper?

(Colin)

This morning, we started at a comfortable 9:00 for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which is not adjacent to the hotel, interestingly.  After consuming ungodly amounts of food, we meandered through the streets of Lijiang.  As we were wandering, Chris saw an old woman peeling potatoes on the street, and went to take a picture.  At the activation sound of his camera, the old woman screamed at him in some native dialect.  Needless to say, we continued walking.

After several minutes, we found ourselves on a market street, surrounded by various wares and curios.  Chris and Ryan bought ancient Chinese fake Ray Bans, Lizzy bought a nice pillowcase made in the Na Xi style, and I purchased a kind of flute thing.  We made our way up and down the street, and Lizzy realized that ...
she was cheated in her purchase after having seen the same pillowcases for sale for half the price that she paid.  After a short period of time of being lost and passing several alleys that could only be described as “sketchy”, we arrived at the food vendors, who had set up shop in front of our hotel.  After I had purchased three yak skewers for 10 Yuan, or about 50 cents each, which were delicious, I got ready to leave.  We left soon after, but not before I bought more yak and played Chinese Chess with Ryan, a game which makes very little sense. 

Our guide, Jennifer brought us to lunch, where we ate some fish and some beef, and a great deal of cooked salad, Lizzy’s favorite.  We then went to a museum of the Dongba culture, which featured many nice buildings, and many hilarious signs, as pictured.  After we went through the museum, we said goodbye to Jennifer, and we began our three-hour drive to Dali.

What started as a pleasant drive through the Chinese countryside soon became a perilous journey through winding mountain roads, busy village squares, and at many times, the wrong side of the street.  Having almost died no less than seven times, we soon became used to the image of an Audi speeding at us in the same lane, and the opposite direction, on a corner, on a hill, with the sun causing quite a glare.  After the drive through the mountains, we descended onto the beautiful farmland outside of Dali, which showcased skeletal automobiles and stunning views of the mountains, oddly reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings movies.

When we came off the road of a thousand honks, and pulled into our hotel, a vibrantly clothed woman who introduced herself as Nancy, our local guide, immediately greeted us.  She checked us into the hotel and brought us to the hotel’s restaurant.  As we waited for food, she told us that she is part of the Bai nationality, and taught us a few phrases in the Bai dialect.  The food, including local beer, beef and chicken, and a large hash-brown like dish, was full of oil, fat, and carbohydrates.  We concluded that it had been the best meal so far.  What struck us the most about the meal was that, in lieu of napkins, the table had a roll of toilet paper, three-ply, in a plastic holder.  When we needed to get sauce off of our lips, we would ask each other to pass the toilet paper, as we had none where we were.  After a bout of hysterical laughter, we decided to check out the local scene.

The market area, more tame than that of Yangshuo, housed countless shops, all selling the same things, some old buildings that were perfectly lit up in the night, and a Communist party monument of a man holding a rifle.  After wandering around for a while, and being frustrated by an ATM which refused to give us money, we went back to the hotel for some much needed rest.