Our first stop was about 18kms from Dali at Xizhou Village to explore the local village market.

A thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Sichun, Yunnan to Tibet. Xizhou was on the path of the caravans of the Tea and Horse Road also known as the Silk Road. Many of the houses decorated are traditional Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) architecture. They have a distinctive Bai touch of colorful pictures, gardens, use of marble decorations, upturned eaves, and bright colors.

The village market was very interesting. There were various types of vegetables that I have never seen before. Live animals, sheep, fish, chickens, pigs and various underwater creatures. These animals were slaughtered at the market. The Bai women carried a woven basket on their backs to carry their purchases. There were numerous spices, chillies dumplings, rotten eggs, noodles, fresh eggs and much more. The market was very busy and because it had been raining the area was very muddy and dirty. It was a very interesting place to visit.

Our next stop was Zhoucheng Village where we visited a Tie Dye workshop. Tie-dyeing originated from the central plains area in ancient China over 1,000 years ago and is a technology of printing flower patterns on cloth. The tighter the knots are tied, the better the effect of the color printing will be achieved.

The dyeing process involves immersing them in the dye vat for a period of time before taking them out to dry. Once dried, stitches are taken out of the knots and the cloth is smoothen out to reveal that part of the cloth which was sewn and form beautiful flower patterns and the dye crease marks.

The main colours of the tie-dying process are white and blue. The main dye comes from the Ban Lan Gen.

The woman who ran this business was mentioned in the Cream of Yunnan book. She had won many awards for her designs. There was no modern machinery here, all items are hand stitched, dyed, dried and hung out on vast lines to dry. Very impressive place to visit and they were very friendly and happy to show us their crafts.

We then moved to a restaurant nearby for another banquet lunch. I am now an expert with these chop sticks!!!

Onto Lijang and it is pouring with rain. We met up with our local guide, Sunny who is from the Naxi minority ethnic group. We visited the Old Town which is a well preserved city of ethnic minorities - the Naxi - with brilliant culture. The town covers 3.8 kilometres and has a history of more than 800 years.

Walking around we noticed that the layout of the town is free-style and flexible, the houses are close and diverse, and the lanes are narrow and meandering. There was a lot of attention to the decoration, and houses are mostly timber and tile structure compound with a garden, each has engraved vivid figures of people and animals on doors and windows, beautiful flowers and trees in the garden.

The old Town depends on water for existence. Black Dragon Pool is its main water source and subdivides into many streams which can reach every family and every street there. Due to the reticular aqueducts, willow trees grow everywhere and there are almost 350 varied bridges in the little town, some of which were built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The town reputed as the 'Oriental Venice' and 'Suzhou in Highland', but it is much, much more than this.

The centre of the Old Town is the Square Street. Four main streets radiate from Square Street and extend to the four different directions. Countless lanes extending in all directions form a network and connect every corner of the town. Streets are paved by the local bluestones. The sluice at the centre is opened late in the night and the resulting current of water flushes and washes all the streets to keep the town clean. This practical use of water is part of the daily life of the residents in Old Town.

Most of the shops were either, scarves, silver, drums, food or cafes.

By the time we met up with our group we were soaking wet. We walked to a nearby café and had our tea, another banquet. After tea we headed to our accommodation the Adange Hotel in Lijang. The lobby had no bar so a group of us walked to the local supermarket to purchase some alcohol. It is really hard to get Scotch and the beer is really low in alcohol content. Back to the lobby and we had a night cap.