Dali and its Lake

Trip Start Jul 26, 2007
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Trip End Sep 27, 2007


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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

We arrived in Dali it was evening and it was raining. We booked ito a hostel which was just outside of the the old towns walls and right up against the southern gate and by its name was very promising but because of the stink emanating from the toilet we decided to find another place to stay. With ease we found a cheap hotel, cheaper even than the hostel and it was inside the towns walls, altogether it was better situated, cleaner and a lot better. There was a stream running past the hotel, one of many flowing through the town. The sources of the streams flowing through the town all of them come straight off the mountain just outside of the town walls. The town needless to say is very picturesque, and although it is called the old town in actual fact it is a completely new town that has only recently been rebuilt on the site of the old town destroyed in an earthquake. The "Old town of Dali" attracts masses of tourists and we arrived right at the end of summer holidays and within days many of them made their way back home, all the same there were still quite a lot of tourists left during our stay there Restaurant in Dali
Restaurant in Dali
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The walled town of Dali is situated between a range of mountains called the Cashgan range and a large lake called Erhai lake and two days after our arrival in the town we went on a trip we went on a trip around the Lake. It is a large lake with a circumference of over 160km. It is a beautiful lake one side of the lake is not like the other and most of the people inhabiting this area are of the Bai people, one of the many small minorities in the Yunnan province. The Bai people have there own language dress and very different customs from the Han Chinese. We visited a large house that has been turned into a tourist site where Bai actors put on a show of their dancing for us tourists, we were the only westerners there. The house was large and beautiful of which I took many pictures. From there we went into several villages along the way and around the lake. On the far side of the lake the villages seemed much poorer and many of the people of the area are fishermen who layed their catch, mainly shrimp on the side of the road for miles alongside often taking up half the width of the road, the whole way smelt of drying fish.
Today we went up the Cashgan mountain range and runs alongside the lake we went up via an open cable car it rained the whole way up, needless to say we got wet. In spite of the rain the view was outstanding.
After we'de arrived, we dried out and the weather cleared up a bit. The views were breathtaking and it was so quiet and because of the rainy weather there were almost no other travellers, we had the mountain to ourselves.
The day after tomorrow we travel on to Lijiang and from there to Shangrila.
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