It was time to leave Emei Shan and to be honest I was looking forward to a few comforts, such as, Coffee, sit down toilets and soft mattresses. I’m obviously getting old or something… gone are the days of roughing it for weeks on end.

Not our usual style of accommodation but we were booked in to a Holiday Inn, right next to the airport, ready for our early morning flight. Unfortunately my hopes of coffee were dashed on arrival the hotel as it was mid power outage.

Stupidly we decided to take a walk and see what we could find… after about 20mins walking we realised that we would find nothing. So I searched the nearest Starbucks and called a didi 😂. Boys were also happy as we had dinner at Pizza Hut.

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Refreshed after some comforts and an early night with comfy beds we took the short flight to Dali. Soon after disembarking the airport shuttle bus in dali old I was sat down very happy in the sun with a mojito and coffee! Bliss!

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Dali, a lively tourist town, sat on the flat land between mountain and lake, it is was very easy place to spend a few days.

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Our first afternoon was spent wandering the tourist shops, the boys got spray on tattoos, I got an ear piercing, you know normal tourist stuff?! We did pick up a few nicknacs, middle mans tie die t-shirt, sending me back 30 ish years to my brother wearing the same one during our Australian adventures. (Mum/Dad do you have a picture?) unfortunately middle man doesn’t stay still long enough for a good pic.

We also spent a couple of hours at the three pagodas, beautiful views and a nice stroll but the boys highlight was either the tut tut to the pagodas or the stinky horse and carriage ride back.

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On our second day, the mountain looked relatively clear of clouds, so we decided to test our ability to walk at altitude. The cable car took us up to 2600m, which tested BBboy’s and my fear of heights. Especially when it randomly stopped, swayed, jerked started and stopped again! Middle man giggling away as both BBboy and myself turned pale. Luckily we did make it to the top without any more stops.

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I thought we had cheated the climb taking the ride of terror but after doing less than 100m up hill by foot, I was very pleased we did. Catching your breath was not impossible but certainly harder than it should have been. Luckily after those short sharp steep steps the trail was completely flat for 12km. And the views were fantastic. It was a very enjoyable few hours made all the more enjoyable by the lack of people. I think we passed a max of 5 other groups/couples.

At the half way point we had planned to stick up on snacks but due to a land slide the route to the halfway cable car which would normally stock the halfway shops was not open… hence neither were the shops. So we pushed on. At the end we brought the boys a well deserved selection of fruit and sweet bun.

Unfortunately the cable car down was actually a chair lift… it took some persuading to get BBboy on it. He point blank refused to share one with his brothers… not that I blame him, watching them reach out and try a grab trees on the way down proving his point.

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Our final day in Dali started with a lazy get up and late breakfast. The last tourist thing to tick off was the lake. At the boys request we took a tut tut to the lake side.

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As always the case when renting bikes it was hard to find one to fit boy blue but determined that he was now to big to be in a back seat, we found a bike for him in the 3rd shop. Kitted out and sun-creamed up we set of around the lake. We spent the afternoon cycle along the easy flat lake sore enjoying the views. Unfortunately despite applying suncream multiple times we all got burnt to a crisp.

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Tomorrow we head to Lijiang to meet up with friends who are crazy enough to trek tiger leaping gorge with us.