Dali's Erhai Lake and Surroundings

This is my final post about Dali - I wish I had more to say, unfortunately I was just there for a short weekend. I very much enjoyed it, and really hope I can visit again, perhaps as a longer visit of Yunnan Province.

Dali Old City is situated between the Cang Shan Mountains and the Erhai Lake. Erhai Lake itself is surrounded by farmland and valleys, and is dotted by small villages. It's the home to one of China's ethnic minorities, the Bai people. I can't claim to be any kind of expert into the minority, and the biggest difference I noticed is that I often saw Bai women, particularly older women, wearing hats, scarves, or elaborate head-dresses. They're not generally Muslim, the way that might suggest:



That is some powerfully bright clothing, and I don't think I ever saw Bai women wearing clothing that overpowering, although I only saw them at work and not as a social occasion where bright clothing might fit in. One of the local specialties is tie-dyed clothing, it strongly reminded me of being at some tourist shop around Haight-Ashbury. Here's some of the bright clothes, with a simple pattern:



The farmland wasn't totally flat, there was generally a gentle slope. As in Fujian, but to a much smaller extent, this slope was made into a series of flat steps, and then worked by hand. I was told the crop shown below was garlic, although it didn't smell like I was in Gilroy:



There's a few workers visible if you squint at that picture, here's a blow-up of another picture:



Looming above much of this were above-ground graves. A lot of the nearby hills were covered with them, they were often on vantage points that could be seen anywhere in the valley. Additionally, it was relatively common for these graves to be in the middle of the farmland. Crops went right up to the side.



I didn't get as good a view, but the lake was also obviously important to local life. There were a lot of fishermen, numerous temples located on small islands, and I ran across small boats, throughout the area:



Also, there was an interesting market in Wase, on the other side of the lake from Dali. These markets only go for half a day, and they rotate locations - it would be another couple weeks before the market returned to Wase. I guess it's popular with tourists, but since I went in the off-season, it was entirely women selling basic foodstuffs and material for making clothes. That may not seem like much, but the market just went on and on, and was incredibly crowded the entire time. It was a lot to see, and I didn't really feel like playing the photographer, but on the right and below are a couple of quick snapshots I took.



Finally, Buddhist Temples. They were common throughout the area, and somewhat to my surprise, looked entirely Chinese - I didn't notice any Southeast Asian Influence, although Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam are directly south of Yunnan. Perhaps Xishuangbanna, in Southern Yunnan, would be different. The obvious highlight temple is the Three Pagodas, which I showed in my last update on Dali. While they were impressive, they weren't impressive enough to convince me to pay the $20 entrance fee and see them up close! The temples I visited were picturesque, if nothing special.

Dali's Cangshan Mountains

Dali is an extremely beautiful area - as opposed to the generally polluted, entirely flat, entirely urban Shanghai, Dali is located in a peaceful valley surrounding a lake and overlooked by a Mountain Range, with beautiful blue skies. The mountains come down less than a mile from the heart of Dali Old City - these three pagodas, the most famous landmark of Dali, are basically down the street.

I decided to go on a mountain hike - it was a lot of fun, and I while I don't know if it alone justifies a trip to Dali, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who visits. Like the few other Chinese hikes I've been on, the feel is a lot different than the hikes I've been on in America - where maybe one drives to a parking lot at the bottom of a mountain range, and from there is pretty much on their own. Instead, the actual hike started with a twenty minute long gondola ride, over steep, forested mountains. It's all extremely beautiful:



There's a guide station on the way, and then a path left and right from this point. Again, instead of the cleared-brush paths and foot-worn paths I'm used to from US hikes, this was something more like a sidewalk:



That pictures conveys how flat and smooth the path is, but it takes place on fairly level terrain. However, there's large portions on the trail that happens along the side of enormous cliffs! Even so, there's almost no gradient at all to the trail, one could easily travel on a bike or maybe even a skateboard. I found it truly strange to be going through a rugged mountain range without even having to hike up or down, just sideways. This is about as steep as it got, and it's not as steep as it might look.



As is obvious from above, the path must have been dynamited out of the side of a cliff at points. It went back and forth directly against the mountain, it could feel like cruising the contour lines on a map:



There's even includes the occasional tunnel going through the mountain, here's a dramatic example:



The picture above shows the lake valley peaking out. While there were no dramatic lake vistas in the portion of the hike I went through, the valley occasionally peaked out, it was a beautiful view. Most of the path winded through the mountain range. I was there in December, and even though the weather was about as nice as could be asked for, it still got pretty chilly. Fortunately I missed the clouds coming in, or it would have been worse:



There were also stopping points along the trail, with small sites to be seen. They were just a couple minute's diversion, but interesting. For instance, some small waterfalls:



And there was also a small shack selling drinks and soup, along the side of the pathways. They seemed to have a small home alongside the pathway, from which they raised live chickens and sold fresh meat:



Due to a broken chairlift, I walked my way down the side of the mountain when I was done. The trail conditions were pretty bad and I can't say I recommend this to others. However, it did take me past some farms and an interesting Bai graveyard. The graves stand up above ground, and there's a lot of them on hills that look out over the countryside:

Dali Old City

Much too long ago, I wrote about briefly visiting the city of Kunming, the largest city of Yunnan, a province in South-Western China. While I liked the city, I was only there for a half-day before continuing on to Dali.

Dali is a city dominated by the local tourist industry. That sounds like a terrible place to visit, but actually the city was fun, and anyway it largely functioned as a jumping-off point to visiting other sites in the area. There's also a "new" city - while I only drove past city, it looked like any other third-tier Chinese city one might see.

I arrived in the morning, and walked to my hotel down the main tourist drag, Fuzhou Lu, all the buildings were restaurants or net cafes or fruit vendors or convenience stores, the sort of things useful to a tourist. There were no cars, there were trees along the road, and there was even a very small stream along the side of the road. All in all about as pleasant as a main tourist drag can get:



In kind of a strange contrast, a lot of these tourist shops still looked like the traditional buildings, re-purposed for tourists. It didn't come off as gimmicky or fake, just as the natural product of a tourist boom so sudden that nobody thought to tear everything down:



Wandering off the main streets, there were still a lot of private houses of an older style:



Additionally, the city walls had been re-built, and the city was punctuated by a number of pagodas and so forth, the were all lit up at night:



Really surprisingly, this city was probably the biggest backpacker haven I've seen out of Europe - yeah I did a Eurotrip when I was in college. A lot of the travelers were continuing on to Tibet, or were traveling around throughout Yunnan. While I visited a little off season, there was still a very wide range of youth hostels, bars, cafes, and the stereotypes of what a young Western youth might like:



Unfortunately I didn't take a picture which conveys that the Western food in Dali was awesome - cheaper, and generally much better that what is to be found in Shanghai. Many of the foreign-oriented places served as some sort of mash-up of hotel-bar-restaurant-cafe. The local food was also surprisingly good. Here's a local specialty, cross-the-bridge noodles. There's a hot broth, and then the noodles and various ingredients, each served in individual plates, are dumped into the broth and allowed to cook there for several minutes. The fruit on the top plate was for eating after the meal:



While I enjoyed Dali on its own, it's overshadowed by the surrounding area. I'll have a few related updates in the next month or two. It's also worth saying that staying here is cheap - there were a number of decent hotels and youth hostels in the $5-$10 range.

Looking around Kunming

For years, I've kept an eye on airline prices. Even if I didn't have any real intention to travel, I like the idea that I'll see some insane deal and just snap it up! The opportunity finally presented itself several months ago, when I was looking around on Chinese travel site elong, and saw 80% off tickets to Kunming, a city in Southern China. Not bad at all, and I made a quick trip of it.

Kunming wasn't actually the final destination - the idea was to arrive in the afternoon and take an overnight train to Dali, I'll have more to say about Dali soon. Still, what I did see impressed me a lot, I wish I had more time to look around.

When I first arrived at the airport, I took a taxi to the train station, it was only fifteen minutes or so. I got my overnight ticket without a problem, and then went to walk around the city, with a heavy backpack in tow. The area around the station was fun - a little scruffy, with a lot of small shops and stalls aimed at the train and bus passengers.


Kunming was a fun city to wander around - the weather was great with blue skies, there wasn't much pollution, the sidewalks were generally wide, and there were interesting sites scattered here and there. I also liked how the Qingnian River flowed through the downtown:



In that picture the buildings are stacked up right against the water, but overall the city didn't give me the impression of being so packed. Here's another picture of kids playing alongside the river:



Against expectations, there were some very old, shoddy buildings to be seen, even just walking around the downtown. I just took some quick snapshots, I wish I had gotten some better pictures, as I haven't really seen anything like them in Shanghai:



Jinmabiji Square, downtown, had a lot of people and a lot of shops. There was also a Best Buy, a Carrefour, and other Western chains. Here's a picture facing West - if I had taken a picture to the East, there would have been a lot more buildings. In Shanghai a shot like this would be impossible - there's no blue skies going up against buildings!



And North of the Square, was a long road filled with vendors selling snacks, or tea, or fruit:



There was street food all around Kunming, just the way it should be. Most of it was stuff I'd be able to get around Shanghai, but what I had was top-notch, and generally cheaper than Shanghai as well. These lamb kebabs were just awesome, with a great hot sauce brushed on!