THE STORY

Getting to the Pagodas - by bike

At the pagodas

Walking around and out

Panoramic view of old town from middle gatehouse

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Getting to the Pagodas - by bike

We could see the famous Three Pagodas – just – from the high window of our shower room in the Tibetan Lodge, beyond the tiled roofs of the old town.  The hills rose up to the left.  The tall Pagodas looked reasonably close, and on our first morning we decided to hire bikes from the hotel and cycle out there to see them.  We had to check the brakes on the bikes carefully – not all of them were working properly – and then turned left out of the hotel onto the street.  We could see why our street was relatively quiet – it was blocked off to motor traffic just up from the hotel, but we could head up it, across a busy road, and then steeper uphill to the western edge of town.  We pushed the bikes up a dusty bank, onto a road that was under construction yet still seemed to be carrying some vehicles, negotiating their way around mounds of earth and the occasional truck.

We felt a bit vulnerable, and tried to find a route on the other side of the new road, through streets past apartment buildings, but couldn’t find a way through.  So we rode back down across the construction works, turning left onto the busy road we had crossed earlier.  This was the main route for traffic through the old town, past shops, restaurants and travel agencies.  We had to keep our minds focused on what we were doing, negotiating the traffic, but at least it was a proper road surface.

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At the pagodas

At the northern end of town we turned left, up to the road under construction, and managed to follow this the few hundred metres further to the pagodas.  We were faced by an extensive area of coach parking and tourist market stalls, in front of the walls and entrance gate.  After chaining our bikes to a tree we bought tickets – it was the most expensive attraction we visited during our stay in China, at 52 yuan each (£3.50), not far short of Western prices.

But it was a sight not to be missed.  Passing through the modern turnstiles of the gatehouse, we were confronted on the other side by a really impressive vista.  A broad pathway and steps led ahead, towards the tall shapes of the Three Pagodas.  And we spent the next hour or so walking up to and around them, providing us with an unfolding succession of views of the pagodas from different angles.  Perhaps the view from behind the first central pagoda, looking up high towards the second and third towers with their carved stonework, was the most dramatic.  To the right side was a temple building, and then the central path led between lines of lower buildings. 

One of these, on the left, had a display of photographs of prominent people who had visited the pagodas, and other photos showing how the monuments had been restored from a state of dereliction some decades earlier.  There were many small Buddhist figures in showcases as well, but we didn’t see any displays indicating the history behind the pagodas.  All we knew, from the Lonely Planet guide, was that they were built in the mid-9th century, and are amongst the oldest standing structures in all China.  The 16 tiers of the central pagoda rise to 70m.  We should have read the guide more thoroughly - after getting home I noticed that the final temple building houses a museum of the history of the monuments.

Outside this exhibition building was another display of photos, this time showing the staff who had performed well in their duties.  This was something we saw in several places around China - promoting an ethic of hard work and good service to the people, maintaining collective commitment and effort in a vast country.  Maybe it's a bit of a relic of Communist days, but this promotion of social responsibility is something we could learn from in our individualistic western society.

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Another gatehouse stood ahead of us, and we found a young woman dressed in Bai costume apparently asleep in one of the corner shelters.  Inside, various religious items were on sale, and on the other side Catriona and Owen sat and looked up to the final temple building which almost seemed to be brooding beneath the dark skies overshadowing the mountains behind.  There were still more religious buildings closer to the mountain slopes, but separated by the walls of this complex.  To the left of the gatehouse we could look across the roofs of old Dali spreading down from the slopes of the mountain, towards the lake in the distance on the left, with more misty hills beyond.

Outside the wall to our right a dusty road led past a few houses, and a bunch of youths were having some fun chasing each other.  In a walled enclosure nearby, some sort of gathering was taking place among local women.

We sneaked a couple of surreptitious photos (we were competing with each other for the best pictures of local characters), before walking up to the main temple building. 

Inside the high timber-framed structure was a tall central golden figure, with smaller attendant figures to the side.  Still no story about the origins or history of the building, I’m afraid (maybe it was on one of the upper storeys).  We could probably have bought a guide book but carrying more books around with us didn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

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Walking around and out

On our way out, we went off to the left of the central path and found an ornamental pond with the three pagodas reflected in it.  There was more competitive photography as the sun tried to make an appearance.  We weren’t tempted by the woman at the nearby stall offering traditional clothes which we could put on for a photo in front of the pond, but stopped for a bit of refreshment.

Back at the main gate, we browsed briefly around the stalls selling film and souvenir items, but we couldn’t find any postcards to send to the folks back home (an odd characteristic of China – they could only be bought in packs of a dozen or more cards, covering a variety of scenes, most of which we hadn’t visited).  Then we found we weren’t able to exit by the main gate, and had to walk back across the open parkland to the exit gate at the side. This was convenient for the toilets, where we were greeted by a typically amusing sign: “Carefully slippery”.  Back outside the walls, we browsed a bit more along a row of stalls, each one with a similar range of products for sale, collected our bikes, and cycled back to the town. 

It may not sound like a very inspiring excursion, but the visual impact of the pagodas overshadowed by the mountain was something special and worth making the effort to see.  By the time visitors arrive in 2006 and beyond, the roadworks should have been completed, making access much easier.  The leisurely walk around the pagodas and temple took about an hour and a half, and it would have been around 30 minutes’ walk from the centre of town (less on the bikes).

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Contributed by: Andrew Llanwarne

Photos by Andrew, Owen and Catriona Llanwarne