Travels in China: Dali

We did go one more place in China, but it was not the last place we went (that was Shanghai). Our favorite place that we visited in China was a small city named Dali in Yunnan Provence. We visited Dali between Kunming and Chongqing and it was the furthest west we traveled in China. I waited on writing about Dali because we had such a good time there. It fit our vibe almost perfectly, and I wanted to recollect it way later (and it’s almost two months later that I write this).

We had heard that Dali was considered the “Boulder of China” and we kind of understood what it meant; a hippie, laid back, atmosphere amongst some big mountains, with a similar climate, though less snow. What we found was not too far off and it is a popular tourist destination for the Chinese. We arrived in the late afternoon via train from Kunming, to this city of approximately 800,000 people, which is basically a small town compared to the huge cities we had previously visited.

Dali was capital of both the Bai kingdom Nanzhao in the 900s and the Kingdom of Dali for nearly 400 years, until 1253, when it was destroyed by the Yuan dynasty, and later rebuilt under the Ming Dynasty. It is located on Lake Erhai, which is pretty large (and is 6,500 feet above sea level). We saw the lake from the south, east and west on different days, and even took a boat trip on it.

We stayed at a cute hotel run by a family, in a spot above the lake, on the south end. We were treated to a welcome drink and snacks on the patio when we arrived.

After we dropped off our bags in the room, we walked down from the hotel and along the lakefront.

The skies were cloudy but we were lucky that it did not rain. We walked on, looking for some dinner. We passed a couple places and found one near this huge archway.

We saw a sign outside the restaurant that had three meal choices, and we choose the middle one, figuring that would be enough, and it was easy to point at that option. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast (not counting the snack at the hotel) but they just kept bringing more plates, and we valiantly ate as much as we could (at the time of this writing, 98 Yuan is about $12.50 US).

We took the lake walk back to the hotel, getting to appreciate the lakefront in the evening, before calling it a night.

The hotel we stayed at was really cool and we had a huge space with massive windows. The hotel was run by the nicest family who made us breakfast every morning (though they charged us for coffee, which Jessica did not appreciate, as she loves her coffee), and they treated us so well. The view was also spectacular, one morning we could even see the snow on the mountaintop. It made a great trip even more special.