Seeing in Xizhou 喜洲

Second day in Dali and we decided to go to a village called Xizhou 喜洲 to explore. Apparently it is a village of mainly Bai tribal people. The journey from Dali took us about 20 to 30 minutes. We were dropped of in the middle of their highway and told to walk or take one of their tuk tuks in. What an adventure!

Still, we took one of their tuk tuk which took us to their one and only museum. It's actually an old Bai guy house. Reminds me of the 1920s China where they have huge courtyards. Cultural performances and a tea ceremony were presented to us while we are there.

Bai wedding performance

Tea tasting

Of course being me, I enjoyed the cultural performance but not immensely. However, Cuchi prefers the cultural stuff as she's more an arty person. I enjoyed the next part of the exploration though. Rubbing shoulders with the local and Xizhou is rather untouched. You can still see a number of locals at their markets and hawker centres.

Xizhou's Maxwell Hawker Centre

Jollibean

Morning market

After Xizhou, we went to this tiny fishing/harbour village called Caicun 才村. Situated on the edge of Erhai 洱海, it has boats to take you to the villages across the lake. Erhai really reminds me of sea of Galilee, but still nothing can compare to the Sea of Galilee in its' divine beauty.

A wannabe artist painting Erhai

 
Let's get on with real business shall we. Of course after seeing so many photos, you must be wondering, 'Don't these travelers need to eat?' And here we present to you our lunch/tea break, at one of Dali's pizzeria, Stella's pizza. Everything is home made. Pizza is wood fired and the nachos/tortillas are made by hand and their own corn (Tasty but a bit hard)

Singa and Roary watching the crowd goes by from the 2nd floor of Stella's

Cheesy Nachos

 Had more walks round the city of Dali until night falls and then we embarked on another local cuisine experience. This time, we had our dinner/supper at 苍饵春Cang Er Chun. It is not recommended by any English traveler book but they are on the list of the Chinese traveler book. Ordered a sour and spicy fish soup, stir fried vegetables and a shell fish. Food was fantastic and out of this world. The vegetables are the highlight of the meal though for being so crisp and emitting a sweet taste when you crunch it. Damage of the 3 dishes? 60 yuan.

Spicy shellfish

Delicious stir fried vegetables

Spicy and sour fish soup (The 2 fishes are inside swimming)

Of course we could not end our day without alcohol so we headed to Bad Monkey, a microbrewery opened by 2 Brits. Beer comes in 3 kinds, light, medium and heavy. Wonderfully made and the bar snacks were reasonable and tasty as well.