On Monday mornings there is a market in the village of Shaping (pronounced "shopping"), thirty kilometers north of Dali, that is popular with tourists. I had been planning to go there, but I missed the bus. Several friends of mine made the trip by bicycle, but since I had bruised my hindquarters a bit during my previous bike, it would have been excruciatingly painful to make the long journey to Shaping.
However, later that morning I ran into a man hawking a boat ride to a market in another village across the lake. Since I had been wanting to take a boat ride on Erhai Lake as well as see a local village market, I took him up on it.
He originally asked for 40 Yuan, but I argued it down to thirty. I still thought this was a little expensive, but he wouldn't go any lower, so I went ahead with it.
The man who arranged this trip and sold it must have turned a large profit. There were four of us on the trip he arranged: one Australian, a Swedish couple, and myself. As it turns out, the four of us could have chartered a boat at the dock ourselves for 30Yuan, instead of paying 30-40Yuan each to ride. However, had I gone on my own, I wouldn't have even known about the market we were heading to, and I had never met the other three people, so I wouldn't have arranged this trip with them on my own (and after all, even if I'm being ripped off, it is less than four dollars for a half day's entertainment), so I don't really feel my money was wasted.
It was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was perfect, the air clean, and the vast blue lake was surrounded on all sides by a stunning mountainous terrain dotted by charming villages and a temple that might have been imposing were it not dwarfed by the landscape.
It was also apparently very romantic--at least the Swedish couple with us seemed to think so, as they were groping and slobbering on each other the entire time. The Aussie guy and I, a bit uncomfortable, tried to make small talk and pretend we didn't notice (I spent half a year in Denmark and apparently still haven't gotten used to Scandinavian public displays of affection). If this was bothering me as an American, I don't even want to think about how the Chinese perceived this. This kind of thing is really not accepted by their culture. After eight months in China, I could show you on one hand how many Chinese couples I've seen kissing in public, and even then it is very light kissing, far from the make-out session I witnessed on this boat. In China, you really should get a room for things like this, as it really does make the locals uncomfortable.
After a pleasant half an hour or so, we arrived at the village of Haidong .