Biking, pagodas, and wheat

Today at school I told my students the story about the taxi driver and the miscommunication and they loved it. They also enjoyed the pictures I shared with them from my holidays. People in China do not travel very much within their own country or within their own province for that matter. I feel fortunate that I have traveled across Canada twice with my family. Mom and Dad thanks for the putting up with us for two whole long months driving across Canada, setting up the tent, taking down the tent, answering the never ending “Are we there yet?” and playing the ABC game to keep us entertained on those long stretches of road.

Part II Biking in Dali
Dali is well known for its Three Pagodas. On the hillside just outside of the Old City are three Pagodas and are among the oldest standing structures in southwestern China. The tallest of the three has 16 tiers and is 70 m tall and built in the mid-9th century, at least thats what I read from the Lonely Planet. The other two Pagodas are much smaller and only reach a height of 42m. After stopping for a brief moment to take s some pictures of the Pagodas and some pictures with Chinese tourists who think all foreigners are wonderful people and are a must have in their photos, we continued biking. In total we biked 18 km to the town of Xizhou and 18 km back again. Along the way we passed many farms we many workers tending their crops.
All the farming is done by hand, the planting, harvesting, and separating the grain from the chaff. Well the separating the grain from the chaff is helped along by cars, trucks, and bikes, basically any vehicle or things that passes over the road. The farmers collect the wheat and lay it across the entire road. When the cars, trucks, horses, and bikes cross over the wheat they wheat pops the grain seeds and separates the wheat from the chaff. The farms then use a pitch fork and broom to collect their harvest. We rode over several wheat covered roads and sometimes had to pull the straw out from the spokes of our bike. The wheat really slows you down but I suppose it would cushion your fall and prevent road burn.

More pictures to share