Day 9: Dali to Kunming

Today we spent a total of 9 hours on the bus. I forgot if I mentioned how crazy our bus driver is, or how shaky and bumpy the bus is. Anyways, the ride was a bit miserable, but the sun was shining so I couldn't complain. I got to see a lot of the countryside again, which is beautiful.
Just driving by I constantly saw such interesting things. Like the way women carry baskets around. They use their head but it's different than in Africa. They tie the rope to the basket and then use the leverage from their forehead like this:I also saw a man herding goat through his village. I just love seeing things that aren't ordinary things I see at home, and wondering what kind of lives these people live.
At lunch, we each got our own personal bowl of 'across the bridge noodles', which was delicious. I took a picture of it. You get a big bowl of steaming hot soup, and then quickly put your serving of raw meat, veggies, and noodles in the bowl to cook. We had some ham, various meat, bean sprouts, and green onions to add to a delicious chicken broth, though the across the bridge noodles I had in Chengdu had a larger variety of add-ins. It's like a more intense version of Pho. =)
Then spent an hour at the shopping complex, where I bought some minty orange flavored gum and we fed the fish. They were super aggressive, which made feeding them turn into a disgusting feat as hundreds of fish climbed on top of each other with their mouths wide open trying to get a piece of the fish food. I'd insert a picture but it really is too gross to look at.

Anyways... after lunch, we drove 2 hours east to a place called Jiuxiang. It's famous for its bat caves and beautiful scenery. We rode an elevator down to the bottom of a valley, and had a quick boat ride to see the canyon. Here's us! Afterwards, we did a bit of spelunking action. The caves were quite impressive and the lights were colorful, helping accentuate the caverns. Afterwards, we rode another cable car up to the entrance of the park. A fun journey that overlooked the entire valley and the caves below.

Dinner was quite interesting. We had roasted duck- Beijing style. And then they brought out bugs! We had seen ants sold by the pound the day before in one of the markets we were taken to, and that had grossed us out. But at dinner, there were fried moths, bees, and caterpillars. We each dared each other to try it and so I did. The moth was quite crunchy, and didn't have much flavor. It tasted like fried shrimp shells, but the caterpillars was gooey inside despite the crunchy shell, and I had to drink soup to wash down the flavor that it left behind. This is what the bugs looked like:Oh well, at least I can say that I tried something new and different that was authentic to this region! And I can add bugs to the list of things I've eaten... I'm an Anthony Bourdain in training =)