Dali Old Town, Yunnan, south-west China
Foreigner Street and the centre of town
Some early morning impressions of the town
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Dali stands on a gently sloping plain, between the 4000m mountain of Cang Shan to the west and the lake of Erhai Hu, which it is separated from by fertile farmland. The old town is surrounded by a high wall, with impressive gateways, within which the streets are arranged in a gridiron pattern. An expressway runs past to the east of the city wall, and the roads on the west side were being upgraded during our visit.
We arrived after a 3-hour ride in a crowded bus from Lijiang, travelling past rice fields, over hill country, and then down to the lowlands again on the approach to Dali. There were many sights along the way, and in the bus itself, as people piled on and off with their bags and the driver energetically hurled the bus past other vehicles and through village streets with the horn blaring. At one point, the lid of a box next to us burst open and a hen thrust its head out, eyes blinking in the light. It was pushed back in again and the lid secured!
The bus was destined for the new town of Dali, but stopped outside the walls of the old town to let us off. We accepted the offer of a lift from a boy with a horse and trap, and for 3 yuan (£0.20) he drove us through the high gateway and up a long straight street, past large stone buildings and then rows of lower houses and shops. He was keen to help us find a place to stay, as we wrestled to hang onto our luggage and check our Lonely Planet Guide. There were plenty of choices, it seemed, but with his help we reached the Tibetan Lodge Guest House and Catriona went in to check out the rooms. It was perfect – our room had a timber floor with two timber beds and a large shower room equipped with a western-style WC. An inner stairway led to an upper floor with a 3rd bed. And of course there was a TV on top of the storage cupboard. All for 100 yuan (£7) a night.
Very satisfied with our choice, we enjoyed a meal at a table outside beside the quiet street, complete with a glass of Dali beer. Inside, next to the restaurant and bar there were computers connected to the Internet, so we were able to make contact with the outside world for the first time since leaving Beijing. Sending e-mails to friends in Scotland and elsewhere from a Tibetan Lodge in a remote corner of south-west China felt rather weird, but it symbolised how the world is changing. In the inner courtyard there was a selection of bikes, so we were able to hire three the next day for about 15 yuan (£1) each. The food was good (particularly the breakfast), and we were also able to get a couple of bags of laundry cleaned (although this was the one thing that seemed expensive).
We realised we had saved a day in our itinerary after leaving Lijiang early, which would give us the chance to relax a bit with 3 nights in Dali. However we were keen to get out the first evening after our meal, and found the centre of the town was only about 100 metres down the street, past a couple of cafes and shops. People were selling vegetables and hot food from cabinets beside the road. At the crossroads, we found larger shops selling food and clothes, and turned right along a wide pedestrianised street with a stream running down one side below street level. This was Fuxing Lu, the main shopping street running north-south through the town.
We noticed the mannequins in the clothes shop on the corner – they looked like characters from a 1950s Hollywood movie – and over the next couple of weeks we saw identical models in shops wherever we went. Next door male mannequins were dressed in camouflage gear, and there was a lot of military memorabilia for sale. In the street beyond there were book shops, craft shops, jewellery shops and tea shops.
We found a shop selling hand-carved pictures made up of symbols from the Naxi language – Naxi was the ethnic minority around Lijiang, whereas around Dali it was the Bai minority. Never mind, we spent some time in the shop, talking with the female assistant whilst a young lad sat on a stool near the door carving a picture. She explained what the symbols meant, and they were translated on the back of the pictures into Chinese characters. They represented phrases with universal appeal such as "You happy, me happy". It was a splendid shop, and unlike those in Lijiang and Baisha village these seemed to be genuinely locally made craft products. And they looked distinctive. We bought four to take home, after a bit of bargaining, for 110 yuan (£8) having decided we could send them by post. (It took us – mainly Catriona - quite a bit of effort to do this in the post office next day, costing twice as much as the artworks themselves, and involving a fair amount of bureaucracy).
That evening we only went a bit further along the shopping street, to the ornate pagoda which dominated the centre of the town, the roof lit up at night. Other clothing and souvenir shops bordered the square around the tower. It was quite late, with few other people out shopping, and we returned to the hotel for some sleep.
Over the next couple of days we explored further around the town. South of the pagoda, the shopping street continued as far as the south gate. This was the route in for many of the tour parties, who left their coaches parked outside the gate and were escorted through the town by a female guide wearing the bright red and white headdress of the Bai people. We bought packs of tea, knocking the price down to about one-fifth of the original asking price.
The street passed a large square on the left, dominated by a military statue, with live sentries guarding a gate at the lower end. I tried to take a photo of the statue, but was warned off by a sentry.
There was no problem taking photos of the little stream which flowed down over rocks on the right, through an archway, decorated with flowers.
One of the features of the centre of Dali was the hypnotic pipe music which seemed to hang in the air, providing an extra dimension to add to the sights of people and buildings. It became a part of the Dali experience, and before we left we visited a music shop and asked if they had it for sale. Oh yes, of course, there was a rack with a row of identical CDs showing the pipes against a background of bamboo leaves. It seemed a collective effort by the town to sell merchandise to tourists – but at only 30 yuan (£2) for what turned out to be a 3-CD pack, we couldn’t really go wrong.
Foreigner Street and the centre of town
Turning left at the main cross-roads, we passed the gates into a small park on the left, and the post office to the right. Then a brightly lit window showing new building plots for sale, with models of the finished houses. Just beyond, we reached what is known as Foreigner Street – Huguo Lu street with lots of restaurants and hotels and shops, complete with signs for Carlsberg. We stopped there a couple of times for pots of tea, and were able to sit for an hour or so, topping up the tea pot from the huge flask of hot water, watching the world go by. On the second occasion we tried a different tea with the inelegant name of Pu’er, and it turned out to be a deep red colour and strong distinctive flavour – quite a contrast from the usual greeny-yellow varieties.
At the next table, a couple of women in colourful traditional costumes (different from the usual local Bai dress) were performing needlework on items destined for the tourist stalls. Just behind them, to the left, were large hoardings blocking off one side of the street. On closer inspection, we could see the artist’s impression of the new “Foreigner Street Mall” that would soon be completed to help keep the visitors occupied. It suggested that Dali was heading the same way as Lijiang, but away from Foreigner Street it still looked as if it hadn’t been altered too much to con the tourist.
There were certainly lots of shops, though, especially along that central main street, which we followed for another couple of hundred metres beyond the junction with Foreigner Street.
Some early morning impressions of the town
On the second day in Dali, I went for an early morning run, through the South Gate and past the first of the coach parties, then turned left down the road with the outside of the town wall on the left. There were workshops on the right, working with timber, and the pavement was pretty uneven. The road was narrow, and carrying quite a lot of early morning traffic, made up of a wide variety of ancient and modern vehicles typical of a Chinese town. At one point they all came to a stop, showing that traffic jams aren’t restricted to the cities (see photo). I carried on, down to the lower (eastern) edge of the town and found a way through into the streets just outside the city wall. There was another strange vehicle on three wheels, with the driver chatting to a peasant woman, and then another woman walking with her hoe over her shoulder towards the main road and the fields beyond.
I briefly ran across to the fields, and gazed a the neat rows of beans and maize, and took a couple of photos. This was where we had cycled the previous afternoon (see below). Back into the town, I explored more of the narrow streets, knowing I couldn’t get too lost, then watched some women labourers working beside the road. There were more timber and metal workshops and repair sheds along this road, just outside the walled town. I ran back to the east gate, and turned left across a tree-lined square and back up the central street into the centre of town.
It was great to see people just getting on with their regular tasks, calling into little shops, buying bread, carrying crops into town in baskets hanging from bam-bam poles. A policeman supervised the gentle movements of people and traffic. I soon found out where the crops were being taken to – round a corner to the left, just before reaching the crossroads with Fuxing Lu street, was a small market square, full of activity . Vegetables and fruit were set out on either side of the street, and at the end there were stalls with a variety of other products. The baskets on the bambam poles were simply placed on the ground and the contents presented for sale. Another woman had her colourful spices laid out on a cart pulled by a bike. Another bike/cart was parked nearby piled up with what appeared to be ready meals – the local meals on wheels service perhaps.
I tried to take all this in – street markets are such a colourful spectacle and an important part of life in rural towns anywhere in the world, and this early morning event was definitely aimed at the local clientele rather than tourists. The traditional costumes worn by the women were their daily working garments. An authentic impression of Yunnan.
Moving on, I made a quick detour to a town centre park which we’d visited the previous evening, when a noisy dance had been in full swing. Now it was quiet, except for the occasional shout of triumph from one of the tables where groups of people were gathered playing cards. Fortunately I hadn’t quite used up the camera film at the marketplace, but after taking a couple more pictures I ran the short distance back to the Tibetan Lodge.
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