We took the bullet train in Kunming and we reached Dali in about two hours for approximately £15.
The train will leave you in Dali, the modern town.
To go to Dalizhen, Dali ancient town, you need a DIDI or a taxi; the journey should take around 20 mins, traffic permitting.
Dali is a town with rich culture located between Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake with a deep rooted Bai minority culture.
You will see plenty of Bai women with their traditional attire which they still use every day.
The old town centre is very easily walkable without a map: you will encounter city gates, old towers, green lush parks, old streets, temples, the famous Dali Catholic church, shops and bars: Dali is alive day and night.
I think it was the first place in China where we actually felt the “holiday vibe”.
Yunnan is very popular with domestic tourism and some foreign tourism, although we did not meet any obvious westerner!
Unmissable in Dali is the Three Pagoda park: wear comfy shoes!
The Three Pagoda park comprehends also the Chongsheng temple, a sprawling matryoshkas of temples, one behind another, until reaching the main building at the bottom of the Cangshan mountain.
The three Pagoda park is located about 1 km out of Dali, but there are very cheap tuk tuks that will bring you there.
According to local legends, the city was once inhabited by breeding dragons before the humans arrived.
As the dragons were creating natural disasters to dispel human intruders, the people decided to build the Three Pagodas to deter the dragons.
Indeed, they have endured several natural catastrophes over more than one thousand years.
The Three Pagodas were built 1,800 years ago. It is a symbol of the history of Dali City, and a record of the development of Buddhism in the area. As its name implies, Three Pagodas are made of three ancient independent pagodas forming a symmetrical triangle. This is unique in China
The extensive Chongsheng Temple lies quietly, nearly unexpected, on the back of Three Pagodas. It is the largest and most grand temple cluster in Dali and 6th largest Buddhist centers in Southeast Asia.
In history, there were altogether 9 Dali emperors that gave up their status and became a monk at Chongsheng Temple.
It is absolutely magnificent and not to be missed.
At some point, we thought we had walked all the way back to Europe!
There are many options for food in the city, Chinese and Western.
We really liked Kaiyi’s kitchen which had a fusion cuisine and vegetarian options.
We really enjoyed Dali. It was laid back and vibrant.
We spent two days but there are a lot of day trips to do in the area. You can easily add more.
We instead hopped on a DIDI and went out of the tourist trail, on the other side of the Erhai lake, to Shuanglangzhen.
Read on…
For more China blog posts: https://blog.worldswithout.net/china
