The next day, I went on a long boat trip with some other people from my hostel and saw some awesome scenery (see also 1, 2 and 3.
A bus from backwater Yangshuo to Nanning, a horrible seething pit of traffic jams, noise and air pollution, as well as all-too-visible and abundant street prostitution. I took refuge in the central People's Park (thankfully all large Chinese cities seem to have one) until it was time for my train to leave for Kunming.
Met my host family at Kunming station, stayed with them for the day.
A pleasant trip to Dali with a bunch of people from a vinyl-floor-making company going on holiday there with their work unit. All the Chinese stayed in XiaGuan, "New Dali", though - I think the old-ness of Old Dali isn't appealing to them - so I caught a bus to the latter with some other foreigners. Spent the first day wandering around the town (see also 1, and 2), and went to see the town gates. I planned to go easy on eating meat, after seeing the local butcher's shop, but this turned out to be impossible - it didn't matter, though, the food everywhere was excellent. The next day, I was convinced to join a tour organised by the Tibetan owner of my guesthouse, which took us to the markets (also 1) in the next village, as well as the ricefields on the surrounding hills. We stopped for lunch at a Hui (Islamic Chinese) restaurant. Our guide went in first to order ahead while we went for a walk, and we all joked about the black carcass hanging out the front being for lunch - it turned out that it really was. Quite tasty too. Finally, we went back to a Tibetan banquet at the guesthouse, essentially "yak prepared in 15 different ways".
