Day 32 Our night train had certainly seen better days; no air conditioning, no bag storage and a lot dirtier than we are used to with very hard beds. So after a hot, stuffy and sleepless night (well as always Eve managed no problem) we found a bus to take us into the old town of Dali. We found our hostel to be about a ten min walk from the centre and after a few days with no internet, we set about catching up with the neglected blog. It was 11ish by the time we got out again and our initial plan was to hire some bikes but decided to use the full day tomorrow. The whole area is beautiful with a large lake surrounded by mountains and traditional farms so instead we walked down to a fishing village by the lake called Caicun. It took around an hour and for the first time in China we were treated to some glorious sunshine making it a lovely walk. There wasn't much to see in Caicun so after walking along the lake we caught the bus back to Dali and explored it a little further scouting out some bars for that night. We ate in the hostel and went out for a few drinks starting in a bar called 'Kalida Vodka' which we read about in the Lonely Planet as its famed for its flavoured vodkas. We tried 6 flavours; Green Tea, Lychee, Sour Apple, Skittles, White Rabbit (not the animal but a chinese milk sweet!) and Sichuan Hotpot (a spicy dish). We were talking to the owner for a bit and then to a chinese girl called Estrella who was a TV and radio presenter- we claim she was a chinese celebrity! Then we went to a backpacker bar 'Bad Monkey' which had a band so a had a couple drinks there before heading back. As we were going to bed we bumped into Michael, the man we met in Emei Shan from New Zealand and he was also planning to cycle the lake so we made plans to go together.

Day 33 We slept in. Just as I was stirring and Eve getting ready Michael was knocking on our door. We told him to be ready for 8.30 but here it was 9.00 and we were still getting ready! He didn't mind so patiently waited and we headed out to hire our bikes. We cycled down the same road we did the day before and turned off to go up the lake towards a village called Xizhou. We passed so many farms all of which were being harvested and by alot of farmers. It was amazing to see them still using old techniques with their hands- not a single tractor or a machine in sight. After passing about 10 villages we started to become hungry so sped up a little and when we seen a bride and groom getting their wedding photos taken on the peninsula we had to stop for a few photos ourself. We finally arrived at Xizhuo and it was a gorgeous little village. We found the square which was full of food stalls so after some serious decision-making we decided to share a bowl of noodles and got a 'Dali Ba Ba' each. The noodles were some of the best we've had in china and the 'Ba Ba' was a huge fried-steamed salted bun filled with spring onions and pork which was delicious. For the journey back we stuck to the highway as we had to be back before 7 to drop the bikes off. It was a brilliant day out with clear views of both the lake and mountains, continuous sunshine and a plenty of exercise- we even caught some sun too. So feeling tired we retreated to the hostel and packed for the next day.

Day 34 This was not a day we were looking forward to. After the alarm irritatingly woke us at 6:30am we spent 30 min on a bus to the new town and ate some rice cakes, oreos and an orange for breakfast. We then had a 7 hour train at 08:45 which took us back to Kunming for 16:00 where we waited until 18:00 for our 17 hour night train to take us to Guilin.