Photos from Mt. Shibao

The view from the drive to Mt. Shibao


The remnants of an idol

Walking around the mountains

The mountains of Yunnan

Monkey with kid

The guy feeding this monkey identified the monkey as "the monkey king"


Climb to the top of the mountain

The temple as seen from the front gate

View of the mountain

The trails leading up the mountain

Mid-level of the temple

Mountain peaks

These likely once held the ashes of a monk

Idols on higher levels of the mountain

The view from the top. I believe you can see all the way to Er Lake, near Dali


Peak of the opposite mountain


Ruins of a temple on the top of a mountain. Someone lives there now.

Chickens in the temple

Fields for cultivation next to the temple

Coming down the mountain

And more mountains, lovely lovely...

The main idols, a closer look. The golden one is Maitreya, the Future Buddha.

Temple complex, from the level of the idols

For scales

FOOD PORN! This was a ridiculous vegetarian feast the temple prepared for us. Directly in the foreground was one of the rare misses: it tasted like sticks covered in sugar, and it might have been. But next to it is awesome fried cheese.

The idols in the mountain again. I usually avoid taking pictures of the idols, but it was pretty hard to do here.

Mountains again.

Photos from Xizhou

Vats of dye at the batik making factory

Tie-ing the tie-dye

MICHELLE!

Fixin' the dye

George trying to dye fabric

My host daughter, who was kinda cute

Slabs of pork hanging there to dry. I never quite got what that was about.

Cooking equipment and produce

Cutting up some pork, straight from the pig


The marble table in the living room. In the Dali area, marble is so plentiful (the word for marble in Chinese is literally "dali stone" that it's extraordinarily cheap. So even though this family was not incredibly well off (although also far from really poor), they had tons of marble furniture.

View of the mountains from the house.

Marble patio, see my note above.

Host dad!

Host mom wearing traditional Bai headdress.

Photos from Dali

The mountains surrounding Dali

The old, intact walls of Dali


A pavilion in the city

The old streets

Lovely little street

Gates

The mountains as seen from the city

Interesting church with Chinese architecture

Gate to the city

View from that gate


The view of Lake Er



The town on the slope of the mountains

This is where you can go to eat a minority family, I guess. Weird thing: the Chinese actually says "Ancient town family".

Michelle! Skewers!

Old town at night

Dancer at this bar

Unreal view of Dali and lake Er from the campus of Dali University, which is only six years old and insanely pretty

This is all faculty housing. Yep.


The hills behind Dali University. Eat your heart out, Wash U.