After a good lunch in a small village, we went to see the legendary herbal healer Dr. Ho. The man himself said hi to us, but not much else, as he is in his 80s and had seen two or three tour groups already that day. He wore a knit cap and a dirty lab coat, and his office walls were lined with framed posters of himself and old newspaper clippings where his name had been mentioned. His extremely energetic son lectured us for at least 45 minutes on how many accolades his father had received, how many famous people had been healed of leukemia by him, and how many newspaper articles and TV programs he had been featured in. The man apparently doesn't charge for his services, but everyone he heals of cancer is just so gosh-darned grateful that they have donated enough for him to build a massive museum for himself, featuring plaques with quotes from patients thanking him and saying how wise he is. The museum was very large and impressive. I was most amazed. For all these years, leukemia and lymphoma have killed so many people, and so much money has been spent researching new drugs and treating people with radiation and chemo-therapy, and the whole time, the answer has been growing in a small herbal garden in a village outside of Lijiang! What a pity that everyone with the disease doesn't know that the cure for cancer is growing right in Dr. Ho's garden.

We also read a guest book where people could write notes to Dr. Ho. One man, Steve from Arizona, thanked Dr. Ho for curing him of his homosexuality. I wasn't aware that homosexuality was a disease, but apparently Dr. Ho has a cure for that, too.

April 16: Today I biked around the city. I first went through the countryside outside of the city, and saw two water buffalo roaming in farm fields. That's not something I see everyday in Beijing. Later, I went through an older part of the city that hadn't really been touched by tourism. I was the only Caucasian in sight, and I got a lot of strange looks from the residents, surprisingly few of whom wore traditional garments. Most were just going about their business, and the scene reminded me of Shangri-La, with a number of machine and truck shops, and small grocery stores and such. It seemed to me as if the people living here either worked during the day in the old city, catering to tourists, or perhaps they were just involved in different industries altogether, like construction or trucking. It seemed to me that this section of town might actually be more "authentic" than the old city section!

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