Saddle soreness

After the 7 hour hike, I thought the next day we'd take a break and just ride bikes for 8 hours or so through the blazing heat. Actually it was an awesome day, just riding through isolated fields and paddies where locals were toiling away as they've always done




through tiny villages where the roads were completely covered by the drying wheat crop


past beautiful pagodas


and finally on to the Bai farmers market which rotates through a number of villages in the area and which we happened to catch in Shaping where it occurs on Mondays. Now that was an awesome experience, huge piles of beautiful fruit and veg and local people trawling through them for the best buys and stowing their shopping in their wicker backpacks.



How good is this stall-holder's eggplant-coloured camoflage coat?


The plastic fantastic area was also kinda cool


Sarah haggled hard for a couple of gorgeous handcrafted belts


Unfortunately, stumbling down "raw meat alley" was not such a highlight


From there it was another 30km or so of riding around the lakeshore which was just stunning. Then the extortive ferry across the lake back to Dali.



Well near to Dali anyway, only another half hour ride uphill before we could dispose of the bikes and limp back to our room to sit gingerly on our aching arses and compare third-degree sunburns