We had the choice of highway or mountain roads today - and chose the former. It was between ~3 hours and ~5 hours on the road, but very different intensities (hairpins and little villages vs gentle curves and tunnels).

Today’s route in blue

I’m happy with this decision, as sleep was a bit lacking. I had wrapped up the journal at about 2am last night, and then was up at ~8am, so I wasn’t too keen to have an intense day of riding.

Other notable parts of the morning:

• this brew-the-night-before move is fast becoming a routine. It’s nice to do the brewing and packing up the equipment the day before as mornings are usually a bit of a rush, and packing while sleepy and tired is always not as pleasant as it could be.
• This new bag of roast8ry coffee (a natural Ethiopian) is excellent and super fruity. Will be enjoying this!
• Breakfast was rice porridge with fermented vegetables. A classic! To get onto the highway, we first needed to get past the toll booth. “We don’t advise motorcycles to go onto the highway”. This time I’m determined to get past it. “What do you mean advise? Is it allowed?” “It’s company policy that motorcycles shouldn’t go onto the highway” “Oh nooo…how come?” “The highway might not be safe for motorcycles, lots of trucks, high speed” “Actually we were told that yesterday too, and went the country roads instead. It was so much more dangerous than the highway, the road surface was so rough and we almost dropped our bikes. I would be really grateful if we could ride the highway. “We can’t let you through because otherwise we would be responsible for your safety and if accidents occur” “Actually wait - will we get in trouble if we just go through the gates?” he smiles at us “Thank you so much!” - And with that we took off.

The going was smooth. I spent most of the time on cruise control, dead on the speed limit - out of respect for the toll booth operators. The landscape was a lot more “normal” than down south, with rolling hills, and fertile valleys as agricultural plots.

Toilet break ~60KMs from Dali

Towards Dali, the mountains grew steeper and darker, until we reached the city.

At Dali, we routed to the wrong hotel, but the one we had found was so nice! So we decided to stay there anyway. Perks of not booking until arrival!

Entrance to “In the Clouds” hotel

It comes complete with a cafe (incl both EK43, and Comandante! This is a first for any hotel I’ve stayed at), tea room, library, bar etc.

The best hotel cafe I’ve seen

In fact, the bar is where you check in! As a bonus there are the owner’s pets as well - the cutest and most well behaved, a golden retriever, cocker spaniel and a fluffy white cat.

Mr Fluff

Next stop were the “Three Pagodas” and the adjoining 9 temples. Quite the workout and what a beautiful setting. Temple after temple, with the most grand being second to last.

The final temple against the mountains (more pics below)

The back facing the mountains and the lake in front. My layperson’s understand is that this is excellent fengshui.

Seniors playing cards in the public park! IMO China is one of the best places to live your sunset years (if you’re Chinese)

Walking through Dali, i get the feeling that this is China’s Chiang Mai. Not only does it have a similar“old town”, being from the Ming dynasty (late 1300s).

Outside the city walls

It also brings together creatives from all parts of China for the nice bars, cafes, boutique stores etc that makes for a nice place to stay.

Showing off my coffee setup

To finish the day, i hung out at a nearby bar where i befriended the crowd, and got a spot behind the bar making everyone coffee.

Me and my new friends, enjoying my coffee

(It helped that one of them was aggressively gay - some have referred to me as a “gay icon” - although they were hearing all about my beautiful fiance and our upcoming wedding in no time). I dug out my grinder, beans, scale and dripper, and we tried a few different coffee, two of them roasted by the proprietors of the bar. Dinner was north eastern Chinese, at one of those hilarious restaurants where you know the food is good because the service is so bad. Food was 10/10 and service was 0/10. The owners seemed angry that we were there, and they were not at all receptive to the compliments we heaped upon them. And when we found a bug in the soup, it was taken away with no further comment (no apology, no replacement, and it was still charged for in the bill!). It was such a fun experience.

Hotel bar - enjoying a pu’er gin cocktail and some baijiu

To finish off the evening, I’m enjoying a drink at the hotel bar while i write this. I’m happy that I can share my experiences with you!

Tomorrow; Shangri La and Tiger Leaping Gorge!

Side note: altitudes are going up over the next few days, peaking at 4500m when we pass Daocheng.

Some stats:

• 197KMs traveled
• Fuel added: 12.4L
• Unique interactions: 4
• Coffee consumed: 25g

Route to date

Some temple pics:

The Three Pagodas

The lake from the temple

Smoke rises in front of the pentultimate temple

Inside the pentultimate temple