Dali

China

October 2005
4 days

Gavin wrote:
We spent a few days in the Ancient City of Dali which is a beautiful place with traditional chinese architecture and paved streets and lots of water features. We also hired bikes which wasnt great as we cycled mainly uphill to a chair lift which took us up a mountain where we walked the cloudy tourist trail which is on the side of a mountain and is a 10km walk where we saw some amazing scenery and it ended at a cable car station so we could get down.

The next day we went to the ear shaped lake nearby and did a boat trip to a nearby island where a minority village of local bai people reside. The village was ok, mostly just stalls and things selling trinkets and weird food stuffs - we also had tea in someones house which was interesting although turned out to be expensive. That is the problem with china, you have to pay to do anything touristy, for example this boat trip cost 100 Yuan and then the village cost a further 3 Yuan (the tea was 30 Yuan - more than dinner!) and then to visit a temple would have cost a further 10 Yuan etc..

Lorraine wrote:
took the bus to a town called Dali - which has really stunning scenery. The town is v. touristy - but really nice. Hired some bikes today but it was so up hill and the bikes were rubbish that we had to walk them up hill. Eventually got to some chairlifts which took us about 1000 ft up the mountain which had amazing views. Had some lunch (getting the use of chop sticks). There was also a mountain path which we took - we didnt mean to go to far but in the end decided to walk the whole way - which was 10kms. Luckily there were some cable cars at the other end. Then had to get a taxi to get the rubbish bikes back.

will stay another day as there is a huge lake at the other side of town with some stuff to explore.

V. surprised by China - much nicer then I had expected and the people are v. friendly although they cant really speak any English so we have to point and mime a lot! And local beer is cheap and nice.

Anyway, off out for dinner in the freezing cold.

Me
wearing THAT same top - and some rather funky shorts

Random waterfall

The route
You can see how it follows the contours of the moutain

The route
Carved out of the side of a mountain

10 km walk
The route clung to the side of the mountain and we passed some spectacular sights, lorraine was in charge of the camera and took over 100 pictures that day