Day 11 - Dali - 10th December 2008

Adam and I had plans to wake up early and use the hot spa again but it didn't happen. The alarm woke me up at 7.00 but Adam didn't stir until 7.20 so had 10 minutes to get ready for our scheduled 7.30 breakfast. We set off at 8.15 for our final day's ride, it was hard to believe that our epic journey was about to end. It was suppose to be an easy last days ride and I tried to ride as hard as I could but after our first stop at a local market I set off and immediately had a flat tyre, so had to stop while our friend Lay repaired my tyre for the second time on this trip. Sandy had waited for me further down as she was worried I had been hit by a car because I was taking so long to catch up. Sue was also waiting for us further along. I guess its the mother instinct in them, but very nice of them to be concerned. After our morning tea break we set off for the final leg into Dali, all wearing our white Oxfam Australia cycling jerseys and coloured stripey socks that Barbara had issued everybody. Just about 3 to 4 kms from Dali we hit a bad traffic jam caused by roadworks and had to do some more unscheduled off road cycling when lo and behold I got my second puncture of the day just 1 km from our meeting point at Dali's Three Pagodas park. Lay did another quick repair job and we had some group photos in front of the Three Pagodas Park before heading into Dali in single file. It was all high fives as we completed our 400kms cycling around Yunnan.

After lunch at the MCA Hostel I decided to walk back to the three Pagodas and it was massive, every time I thought I had reached the last temple I would discover another one behind it and tricycle taxi back to Dali Old Town and looked around the shops until dinner, where we bade farewell to our support team and made a few speeches etc., then a few of us went back into the old town for celebratory drinks. Then I came back onto the free internet and got kicked out at 12.40am.