Much of our long drives days this time involved a lot of driving around narrow mountain clinging roads hanging over raging rivers. The scenery was beautiful and stunning but hard going at about a maximum possible speed of 15km per hour due to the steep roads which were almost just dirt. 
One of the roads had 72 switchbacks taking us up to an altitude of 4618m.
We arrived in Lijaing on Sunday the 25th of September. We stayed in a nice hotel for three nights. It was nice to stay in the one spot for a few days. The Old town of Lijiang is cool with lots of very narrow little roads and alleys with clean streams running through the town. It is quite touristy but it has a nice feel about it and the traditional architecture is what makes it. 
We were able to take our time in Lijiang and just catch up on stuff like the internet (China does not allow access to Facebook or our blog site), enjoy some nice local food, we also sent some parcels home of souvenirs and winter clothes that we would no longer need along the way, which was handy. Also got to make phone calls to the bank and home.
On Tuesday the 27th of September we left Lijiang and drove to Dali. On the way we stopped at the Chongshen temple and three pagodas. Glen wasn't too interested so I went in with a few others from the group. It was interesting big place. I will let the photos speak for themselves.
We then went on to the town of Dali where we stayed the night. We had a large lunch/dinner with our driver Will at one of the local restaurants and then wandered around the old town. It would have been nice to spend another day here but unfortunately the Chinese government had other plans.
Our last two days in China were drive days. One night we ended up camping in a grave yard. We also had our first tent blow out when part of our roof pole snapped but luckily some people in the group had some spare bits and pieces so that we could repair it.
We left China on the 30th of September 2011 and crossed over to Laos.
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