Monday, December 15th, 2003 – Day 300
Three Hundred days away from Home. How time has flew. It was cold again last night bus I slept well. I was up at 8.00am and decided to buy a ticket for the hostel buffet. It was 10 Yuan (10 cent) all you can eat. It was excellent and had everything from rice, bacon, eggs, toast, fruit, yogurt etc. Well worth it. Fit for a king. It was Monday and the Shaping Market takes place. You can go via a travel agent for between 15-20 Yuan. I walked 10 minutes to the road for that town. There was a bus ready to go. It was 4 Yuan each way. It was full my the time we got to Shaping. I left at 9.00am and it took 45 minutes. Forty cent for 28km. Dublin Bus should take note.
Shaping Market is one of a weekly series of rotating farmer’s markets in the vicinity of Dali, Yunnan Province. It takes about one hour from old Dali to Shaping by minibus. The walled city of old Dali is the historic center of the Bai Minority Group who ruled the area from the 7th to the 13th century. The market is sandwiched between the river that drains into Erhai Lake and the marble quarries. The quarries produce a famous marble which is cut by multi-bladed saws into thin slabs to revel the “landscape” inside. People arrived from the high-walled, mud-brick village compounds that cluster in the terraced green fields between the mountains and the lake. Whole families trek across the bridge balancing baskets of produce including tiny lavender eggplants, emerald green bok choy, solid kohlrabies and clusters of green onions.
Small trucks with their exposed diesel engines unloaded people and livestock. A pink scrubbed pig and five piglets arrived in a wheelbarrow. Chickens come poised precariously in wide covered baskets on the backs of bicycles. Every type of merchandise has its own section sprawled out over the barren rocky hillside. There was a young man selling locally forged scissors and knives. The shoe repair woman skillfully peddled her treadle sewing machine.
In addition to produce, the Bai women sell many other things such as long hanks of handmade string in different thicknesses, big gunny sacks of a dried, mossy looking stuff that turned out to be chicken feed, and large, but graceful utilitarian baskets. Some of the baskets for thrashing rice are more than six feet (2 meters) across. They also run the hot food stalls, the artifact, batik and “silver” trinket stalls, candy stalls where plastic bags are blown up with a puff of breath like balloons and filled with multi-colored sweets from a hand-held balance scale. Bai women, even the younger ones, still wear much of their customary, heavily embroidered clothing, although they like dark stretch pants. They are traditionally matriarchal and it shows. At Shaping Market, they control the prices in the umbrella shaded booths, even if a man initially appears to be in charge. When Ron started to bargain seriously over embroidered hats, the women took over. They will do anything to make an advantageous sale: laugh, joke, sulk, let you walk away, and finally, if nothing else works, lower the price. Taken from here.
I was there for about two hours. I purchased a wooly hat cum balavlava and some insoles for my trainers. I was looking to purchase a Chinese Army Great Green Coat for the colder and snow I am expecting the more west I go. I was bargaining with a guy for a second hand one when I felt my wallet in my right pocket for my pants move. I looked down and I saw to long stiff thin wires like a tong in my pocket. My wallet was half way out when he saw my hand move towards my wallet. We withdrew one foot. Cool as a cumcumber without looking at me, she took a cigarette out and lit in. I could not believe it. I knew two kids saw what happened and were looking at me in expectation. The guy with the coat also went quiet. I had no hand on my wallet and one hand clutching my day bag, but I wanted to smack the smug bastard. I stood there for 40-60 seconds staring at me, but he did not flinch. I walked away from the situation.
I was shaking for a few minutes as I regained my composure. I had my wallet stolen in Peru 4/5 months ago and vowed I would not let it happen again. At this was a busy market- and still I should have taken more precautions. It was like attempted GBH. Nothing happened but because the attempt was made, it was as bad. I id not enjoy the market as much after, as I kept seeing the fecker. I sat down near a wall and watched him pass me and then stand about 5 feet behind me. I clocked him and started staring at him and he was staring at me. It was a evil looking fecker all dressed in black, mid 30’s, wiry. Bastard.
The market itself was excellent as the report above shows. I enjoyed it. There was a traveling showman in one area who put a knife through his wrist. I am not sure how he did it. He ad the audience enthralled. There was lots of blood (fake). He then withdrew the knife and sprinkled powder (which he was selling) on to it. He was healed. He was good and made a few jokes to the audience at my expense. He used to day things (the audience looked at me) and all laughed. I didn’t mind.
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Shaping Market (15-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Shaping Market (15-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Shaping Market (15-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Shaping Market (15-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Shaping Market (15-12-2003)
The bus journeys can be scary as they are always braking unexpectedly. Happened as I took the bus back to town and also yesterday. People standing in the aisle were thrown to the ground. Many drivers are inexperienced and the surface is very bumpy.
I got back at 1.30pm. I called into the Dali town market for a while. Its mainly vegetables and meat (pig mostly).
I went back to the hostel and decided to have a shower. Its too damn cold in the morning and in the evening. I cut my hair, had a shave, cut nails and washed. Washed that Wiry thievin bastard right out. At 4.00pm I decided to walk to the lake to watch sunset. It is a 50 minute walk. I decided not to take the high way or main roads but walk on small paths through the Paddy fields. The fields here are always full of people. Farmers don’t own the land. Usually villages control and farm the land but the state owns it. When I pass fields, there might be 30 people working in it. They work hard. They bring water to the plants from the village which could be miles away. Most villages may not be able to afford a tractor to truck to move the produce. Its tough.
Many economists argue China’s current rural land-contract system – farmers have the right to use, but do not own, their land – should be improved.
In China, farmers do not own the property rights to their rural land. All rural land, though legally belonging to farmers’ collective organizations such as villages, is in fact controlled by the State. Economists also contend farmers should be granted ownership of the plots of land they use, and that Chinese authorities should establish a free-market style land-transaction system.
Most farmers are part of theses collectives so to combine land, but they must get permission from the commune leaders to get married, have kids etc. The problem is discussed here and here.
Anyway it was nice walking amongst the fields watch the farmers. Most of the work was been done my women. They were sowing seeds, cultivating land by land, washing produce in ponds of water. It was an excellent walk, although I had to take small paths, go through small alleys and back yards to houses. People were friendly. I one alley a guy had a computer running with the aid of a generator. He was taking digital photos and printing them out for people and framing them (all for a fee). There must have been 40 people crowded around him. I should have taken that attempted bastard thieves picture this morning and posted it on the web.
Anyway I got to the lake. There hundreds of paths leading to the lake and you will never see a tourist as no buses can reach there. I reached a small inlet with three small boats. I must have spent 40 minutes there watching the changing colors as the sun went down. The blue lake and the golden mountains behind it.
Erhai Lake
Erhai (literally, Ear Lake), just as its name implies, is similar in form to that of an ear. It is a fresh water lake two kilometers east of Dali and, in the middle of it, there are islets and sandbars. Covering 250 square kilometers, the blue, rippling lake and the snow-covered Mt. Cangshan add radiance and beauty to each other. The scene is, therefore, described as “Silver Cangshan and Jade Erhai”.
Three main islands and several temples and villages along the lake’s dry eastern shore are worth visiting. About an hour by boat from Xianguan is Golden Shuttle Island (Jinsuo Dao), with a small fishing community on the east side and a cave for exploring. On the shore, directly north of the island, is a rocky peninsula crowned by a pavilion and temple. Sacred Buddhist buildings, destroyed and rebuilt many times, have stood on this spot for nearly 1,500 years. Luoyuan Temple was badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution but has been put back together and has a great charm.
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Lake (15-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Dali – Lake (15-12-2003)
I started walking back. It got dark real quick and was pitch dark when I reached half way point. I went back a different way from which I came but joined the original path again. It took me 50 minutes again. I was back my 7.15am.
I see in Ireland, CHINESE takeaway staff are to be given special training in food safety because particular hygiene problems have been identified in the sector, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has revealed.