Favorite hotel
We stayed in the Yuyuan Guesthouse (玉源客栈, recommended in Lonely Planet), which is probably our favorite hotel on the trip so far (although the Fairyland hotel chain in Kunming is a close contender). Yuyuan is on a small, beautiful pedestrian street (红龙井) that has a brook-style fountain running down the middle, close to the central café and shopping area in Dali, probably the most ideal location possible. It’s built in a lovely courtyard style, with intricate wood cuts on the wall and wonderful dark wood furniture in the rooms. The staff are incredibly friendly, and there’s free wireless and free laundry – all for only 60 rmb per night for a double (it says 80 on the wall, I assume that’s the high-season price). Highly recommended for anyone passing through Dali!
Favorite bakery
Since there are lots of foreign tourists in Dali, there are also lots of cafes, restaurants, bars, and up-scale bakeries (as everyone knows, foreigners love bread). Our absolute favorite is Sweet Tooth (on 52 Boai Road), a really cute cake shop with delicious (and not too expensive) pastries and cakes. The cake shop also benefits the local deaf community, and it seems to be especially popular with expats who live in Dali (as opposed to tourists), always a good sign.
And on top of everything else, the people who work there are adorable. Our second time there, a Kings of Convenience song came on while I was paying, and I mentioned that I liked the music. So for the rest of the time we were there, the CD played on a constant loop. And then when we came back the next day, as soon as we sat down at the table, Kings of Convenience came on again, and again played on a constant loop for the rest of our time there. Right before leaving Dali, we went there one last time, and for the first 30 minutes or so, a CD with Chinese music was on, and I thought that maybe this time they’d had enough of Kings of Convenience. But soon I once again heard the familiar sound of the first song on Quiet is the New Loud. I guess the customer is always right, especially when the customer is a frequently returning one — which we were, mainly for the sake of the delicious cakes.
A walking path snakes along the side of Cangshan
Favorite mountain
The obvious choice here is Cangshan (苍山), the ever-present backdrop to Dali Old Town. There’s a chairlift up to the main trail, but thinking that it would be easy to walk to the chairlift, we instead somehow ended up on the hiking trail up the mountain (and saved 50rmb each on the return ticket for the chair lift, money we could then with good conscience spend at Sweet Tooth). The hiking trail up the mountain takes about two (very sweaty) hours up stone stairs, and ends up on a very well-kept path along the side of the mountain. Another 15 minutes up rough stone steps from Zhonghe Temple (where the chairlift drops off those who are able to figure out where to get on it), there is, surprisingly, a hostel, where we had lunch. Apparently they had three guests the day we were there (who were all out in the mountains at the time), and the guy working there told us that people like to stay there both for the atmosphere and because it’s a good starting point for more ambitious climbs up into the mountains. All in all, a very beautiful and relatively accessible mountain.
A steep drop to the bottom (luckily the way up was along a much less scary path)
饵丝, in soup
Favorite food
One of the specialties in Dali is a type of noodle that I think must be made from glutinous rice, served sometimes as squares (饵块), sometimes as noodles (饵丝). Eating it every day would be overwhelming, but for a few days, it’s quite delicious.
饵块, fried
Favorite day trip
Our muscles were pretty sore after the hike on Cangshan, but we decided we could handle more, so the next day we rented bikes to make the 30km trip to Shaping (沙坪), where a weekly market was being held that day. The ride there was long, but manageable – we were biking along a very well-paved and fairly even road, through fields where people were plowing and harvesting (seeing how heavy the work was made me a little embarrassed over having played Happy Farmer). But unfortunately there was also lots of heavy traffic on the road, so the ride wasn’t quite as peaceful as we had hoped. And on the way back, it became clear that 60km in one day was nearing the limit of what my body could handle, and with limbs transformed into a patchwork of bruises and sore muscles, I struggled on.
On the way back we stopped in Xizhou (喜州), which was only 19 km from Dali, and much nicer than Shaping. For anyone else looking for a day-trip from Dali, cycling to Xizhou, exploring the village, going down to the lake and then cycling back to Dali would be ideal.