Our bus journey was pleasantly uneventful. The Chinese sleeper bus consisted of 3 rows along the bus, each with a 'top' and a 'bottom'. In terms of space, let us simply say that A-M fitted in snugly. The bus was pretty quiet and spitting seemed to be at an acceptable minimum. We found ourselves a tolerable hotel (though Dave flooded the hallway, and A-M found that the ad-hoc electrics in the bathroom gave her a mild electric shock) and then pottered around the town. We found a few interesting shops for real (ie, non-fake) urban leisurewear and stocked up on some clobber. We popped into the shop where we had (via e-mail) organised a 2 day trek to start the next day and finalised a few details.

For dinner we decided to brak with the Chinese tradition and plumped for a great Thai place. We were introduced to the delights of Lan Cang River (Mekong River) lager - by ordering a Tsingtao at the same time we were soon able to apprciate the relative strengths of the former and weaknesses of the latter. Lan Cang has a honey smell when brought up to the mouth (though strangely it has none of this on the palate), then a malty kind of subtlety to what A-M labelled it's 'middle palate' ,before finsihing crisp and clear. At only 3.3% it could well have proved a suitable session lager. We packed that night in preparation for departure the next mornng.

NB - on our Dali entry we forgot to report the resluts of the hair dye experiment. Dave is now slightly browner (as opposed to the blonde / silver that the futuristic model on the box was sporting). Still - at least the remaining hair did not fall out, nor did we get scalp burn ,or end up with purple / orange horror effects....