Bike ride today from Lijiang to Baishe, a small town nearby, with a stop at another town on the way. On the way home, threatened by heavy thunderheads crouching on the tops of the tall Tibetan peaks. We rode in the penumbra of the storm along deserted roads, barely making it back before a heavy rain started. In the same way, the time of this vist is on the edge of huge changes in this country, in the front and in the middle of a huge cultural storm.

I cannot go anywhere here around Lijiang without thinking of Baudrillard. It's become an idee fixe. The hyper-real. The small village we visited today made difficult to find by the construction of a new replica of that same village in front of it. A deserted theme park, waiting for its shell to be filled.

After finding the original and wandering through its truly ancient streets, now and again a peek into a seemingly old courtyard would reveal a new building of concrete and white tile. Obviously, this couldn't be good for tourism. Tourists want the real experience, and sometimes the real isn't real enough.

So the folks who live in these small villages have become either anomalies or part of the show. Ino their concrete courtyard they carry the days vegetables on their backs, in baskets of straw. They wash their dishes still in the canals along the street, they build their buildings by hand of rough timber. But they do all these things now, watched and photographed. And I guess I'm as guilty as the rest, but the temptation is too strong. To see these things before they go away altogether. To be a witness.

Anyways, I try to talk to people before I take their picture. It makes me feel better.

Let's see. Some other odds and ends: went to visit the world-famous Dr. Ho in Baishe yesterday, who prescribed for me some foul tasting tea. Hopefully I'll get better. This cold is driving me nuts.

Debating going into Tibet from here, if a legal way can be found that isn't too expensive. I'm not hitchiking. I'm torn though, between all the people and dogs that I love at home, the reunions which are now so close seeming, and this opportunity to travel further and deeper into this extraordinary place. We say that there's always a next time, but is it so?