Dali
CHINA
Dali-landia
By LYNDI
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
When my good friend based in Shanghai heard we were coming to China, he told me we couldn’t miss Dali while in Yunnan province. He had visited in years past and loved the laid-back vibe and ethnic diversity that permeated the sleepy lake village. This sounded like the perfect close to our short tour of Yunnan, so after Shaxi, we caught a few bus transfers to Dali Old Town.
One of our ten butchered phrases in China included “Are we at XX yet”? Knowing that the “real” Dali was about 20km further south along the lake, we wanted to be sure to deboard at Dali Old Town, so after yelling “Dali ma?” at the bus driver, a young woman sitting next to us said (in nearly perfect English) “Just get off where I do”.
Thanks to her, we unloaded at a non-descript stop on the highway and crossed to a town bordered by tall tower walls. I knew that Dali had been a gateway to the ancient Silk Road and the remnants of a fortified city encapsulated the old town, but nothing about the dozens of carts selling fruit and trinkets identified the “sleepy” town my friend had referred to.
We walked through the gates with our oversized backpacks and quickly realized that we had seriously underestimated the scale of our map. I was able to convince the guys that we should get a taxi to our hotel, so we loaded in one of those open-air tuk-tuks and buzzed through the town to our “splurge” hotel just outside the walls of the town.
We were drawn to Dali not only by the “laid-back” reputation, but also to hike in the Cangshan mountains that border the town to the west and Erhai Lake that borders the town to the east. Dali is also home to the Three Pagodas that are on the vast majority of Yunnan postcards, so with only three days in town, we knew we had a lot to cover.
We started out fairly early in the morning to head towards the Cangshan mountains. We knew there were cable cars to take you to the top, but we figured it would be just as nice to walk up to the paved pathway in the mountains. As we approached the mountainside, we saw that we might have bitten off more than we could chew. The pathway up looked pretty steep and the blazing sun was already making us sweat. Little did we know that using the cable cars to get to the pathway was mandatory.
We emerged from the bazaar outside the west gate and were immediately confronted by a tuk-tuk driver who approached us, gave us a big smile and said “Cabba cah?”. After finally figuring that this meant “cable car”, we politely declined and kept moving along. About twelve steps later, another tuk-tuk driver stopped – “Cabba cah?” – no, move along. Twelve steps, cabba cah, no, move along, etc., etc.
It did not take us long to lose count of the cable car offers – even as we were standing at the entrance to the cable car. We had walked to the Gandong cable car since it goes the highest up the mountain and we thought we could walk along the paved trail all the way to the Zhong He cable car. However, when we saw that it cost approximately 200 yuan per person, we quickly changed plans. Even though China is pretty cheap to get around, eat, shop, etc., activities come with shocking price tags.
Since $30 for a one-way cable-car ticket didn’t sound like a good way to spend money, we decided to head to the lower Zhong He cable car… by tuk-tuk. The Zhong He cable car cost about 30 yuan one-way, and came with the complimentary gift of being in about 50 photos sneakily (or not so sneakily) taken by Chinese tourists on their way down the cable car on the other side. We got a lot of “Hello!”s and waves and generally very friendly smiles. The trip up took about 30 minutes and then we walked along a beautiful paved pathway for about an hour before finding the stairway down.
One of the things I loved about China was how many photos of me are now circulating in cyberspace or on Chinese phones. The vast majority of Chinese locals pretend like they are taking a photo of that really interesting tree right behind the three laowais, or are texting and barely tip their phone up for a photo – but there were also plenty that grab you, talk to you in totally indistinguishable Mandarin, but are likely explaining that they want a photo, wrap an arm around you and get a photo with their new friend.
As we walked along the pathway in the Cangshan mountains, we came across a group of about 15 middle-aged Chinese women who got us to pose in about 30 group photos.
After hiking back to Dali’s Old Town, we signed off the rest of the day for indulgence. After a well-deserved microbrew at Bad Monkey, we started to walk back to the hotel along a street lined with massage shops. And before we knew it, we found ourselves in cushioned massage chairs awaiting our $10 hour long massage.
When we walked in, we asked the lady if she could do three people at once, and before we knew it, three masseuses walked in the front door and proceeded to knead our legs, twist our arms and pull our muscles in all sorts of unnatural positions. It wasn’t what I would call a “relaxing” massage – maybe more of a “hurts so good” massage – and we drowned the rest of the evening with towers of beer, live music, a rare break from Chinese cuisine and random new Chinese friends that shared our dinner table with us.
The next day was a slow start as we nursed acute self-inflicted headaches and dehydration. We checked out of our hotel, stored our gear, and walked to the bike rental at the end of the street. We must have had at least a 20 minute conversation with the lady at the rental shop in which we did not understand a single word – yet we must have had convincing looks of total comprehension because the language barrier did not prevent her from rattling off instructions and – apparently – jokes.
We somehow communicated that we needed the bikes for the day, because she didn’t chase after us as we rode away, and we headed out towards the Three Pagodas to the north of the city. Since it was an attraction in a Chinese city, it was ridiculously priced (I think 120 yuan ~ $20 to see a pool with three pagodas that you can’t even walk into), so we walked up the hill behind the pagodas and took some pretty decent photos from there instead.
It turns out we had some of our best food while in Dali – and when the rain started to sprinkle down outside the pagodas we were happy to move into a nearby restaurant. Since there were no photos and no English menus, they let us look in the fridge and just point to stuff and then they put everything together into a delicious meal.
The rain abated just as we were finishing up, so we headed out on our bikes once again. Aaron and I got into our first good travel fight (loosely defined as “we’ve spent 24 hours a day together for the past two weeks – something’s gotta give”), Cal egged us on, and we eventually headed towards Erhai Lake to travel around the idyllic setting.
We found a great little coffee shop on the edge of the lake and were served by Jaden who really enjoyed practicing his English. He was excited we were American (actually, maybe just excited because he thought we might know Kobe Bryant) and spent at least half an hour with us asking questions and telling us about Dali.
As it turns out, Dali used to be the quiet, laid-back town my friend had told us about, but that was before the Five Golden Flowers movie. Even though it was released in the 80s and described Dali as a Buddhist “wild, wild, west”, the relaxed restrictions on travel and rise of the Chinese middle class have only now started to allow Chinese tourists to come see the city for themselves. Couple that with the Film Studio tucked just outside the city where you can re-enact your favorite scenes from different Chinese films – and let’s not forget the Lonely Planet’s overwhelming endorsement of the city – and it’s population and “Disney-ness” has skyrocketed.
Jaden lamented the loss of the unique, laid-back town, but as residents of the US equivalent of this story (Portland’s population has also skyrocketed with the release of “Portlandia” depicting it as a quirky unique place to live), we understood the good and the bad.
The lake was gorgeous, the ride through the farms and little towns to get back to the Old Town were great and the sun piercing through the clouds was spectacular – all in all a great end to our stay in Dali.
So it wasn’t the hippie, care-free and untouched city we were looking for, but it provided a great couple of days and was a great base for hiking, biking, massaging and drinking – which is what we were looking for anyways. If you ignore the fact that you can barely move when walking through the streets of Old Town due to the crushing number of people, you can imagine what drew everyone there in the first place.
Our overnight train that night took us back to Kunming where we boarded our return flight to Beijing – a final stopover on our Chinese tour.
