I felt distinctly better this morning, well able to stomach coffee + sponge. I even followed that up with a plate of fried cheese at the Garden. This was by way of experiment, but didn’t live up to our hopes. The result was something like crisps, but not crunchy enough, + greasy. We met Mike + Jacob in there, + they joined us on a walk down towards the lake. Or at least Mike did – Jacob turned back after a short time, not wishing to exacerbate his fever. It had begun to drizzle quite heavily, but this was our last day in Dali, so we wanted to take advantage of it. We felt quite sorry that we had imposed on ourselves the artificial restriction of just 3 days, with a train ticket waiting for us in Kunming. 3 days was barely enough time in any case, + losing one because of a combination of illness + bad weather was a blow. It was a long walk down to the lake, made even longer when we set off across the paddy-fields, thinking to take a more direct route. Annoyingly, crossing an irrigation ditch, I slipped on a wobbly stone; dunked one foot + cut my knee. I also, in dislodging the stone, opened up the ditch to a torrent of water. Not wanting to ruin the year’s crop, we did our best to replace it as snugly as possible.
The architecture in the small villages down towards the lake was a little more interesting: small stone cottages. Rough + ready tho’ – not too many straight walls. The people were friendly, with many calls + greetings, + invitations to join them, from the women planting rice in the fields. The nearest I got to that was to try my hand at tossing a bundle of young rice seedlings into the field. Luckily, the guy who normally performed the task was a good bit more accurate than I – he tossed them in nonchalantly but unerringly, even over great distances, so that the bundles sat in the mud, regularly spaced, waiting for the women to move in, pull them apart, + slap them in. I was interested to see that the women used a string tied between 2 pegs to help keep their rows straight, but this in no way diminished my respect for their skill + industry. One could stand there, in the middle of acre upon acre of bright green rice plants, + think that each + every single plant was put there by hand.
At the lake itself, we sat for a while + watched the scene. A fisherman stood in shallow water at the edge of the lake, with a huge contraption made of lashed bamboo, in the shape of an inverted umbrella, about 12 feet across, covered with a fine net. He would dip this into the water, lift it out again after a few minutes, examine the contents, if any, + scoop out any goodies with a small net – he certainly wasn’t pulling out a lot of fish. It was a marvellously balanced instrument, nonetheless; we tried to lift one, + it was surprisingly light.
We rewarded ourselves for our efforts during the day with another visit to the bath-house, before going to the Garden for a meal – we’d intended to visit the town’s other Western restaurant, but it was shut, so we were left with little or no choice. The meal was not as good – I think it is more that we have exhausted the variety of dishes the place has to offer than that the standard has actually dropped. Which is as good a reason for moving on. Called in to visit D + L on our return, to give back the Chandler, + incidentally to collect a remarkable detailed letter that David had been good enough to write out for us, outlining places to see + stay in India. We’ve got on remarkably well with both of them, + would like to get in touch for a pint or seven back home. They are both teachers, + somewhat unusually, both envisage continuing in the profession.
Another good daY. with a fascinating trip to the lake, and some good pictures to accompany it. Dali has been a most successful excursion; if anything, we are annoyed with ourselves that we have to cut it short.
