Travel to China, Yunnan, Dali.

This place was WAY better than Kunming!! Oh man. Way nicer people and far better scenery. What's unique about Dali is that it's divided into the Ancient City and the new city, Xia Guan (lower town). The new city is modern; deluxe hotels and large shopping malls, while the Ancient City is a well-preserved relic from the 8th century. Nowadays, Dali Ancient City is mainly set up for tourist visitors. In fact, there's even a street named "yangren jie" which means "foreigner street" lined with shops selling bootleg CD's, crispy crust pizza, and cheap garb.

The Dali Ancient City lies on the western edge of Erhai Lake. The altitude here is 6,330 feet, almost the same elevation as Lake Tahoe. Behind it soar the Jade Green Mountians and the awesome Cang Shan at 13,330 feet. To me this city reminds me a lot of Bishop, CA and the corridor along Highway 395. Dali is famous because it used to be the end node for trade along the Burma Road during the 9th century. To protect it from rival kingdoms, Dali is surrounded by massive stone walls and thick gates on all four sides. The
The Three Pagodasonly group to have successfully taken the city by force was Kublai Khan and his Mongol Army. Like a bawws.

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Travel to China, Yunnan, Lijiang.

After deciding to stay on the bus at Tiger Leaping Gorge we continued to drive through to Lijiang which added another two hours onto our day. We had visited Lijiang in 2005 so was familiar with the general layout of the city. It was however, like all Chinese cities we had previously visited, so much larger than we remembered. Lijiang has as it's backdrop the impressive slopes of Yulong Xue Shan, usually totally capped in ice and snow, but looking devoid of both when we arrived in the city. We had seen it's icy slopes on the opposite side of the mountain though on the bus trip earlier in the day.
Lijiang's old town is the original capital of the Naxi people, a group of Tibetans who moved to this region of Yunnan in the thirteenth century. Today it is has become the model for the redevelopment of 'old' towns right across China. It is a very busy, though also very pretty, town now totally dependent on tourism.

We caught a taxi (7 yuan) from the bus station to the entrance square of the old town (Dayan) where I left Jerry with the luggage in Grass Market Square (close to
Baisha countrysidethe entrance)and began to search for a hotel room. Over an hour later I arrived back nearly in tears - I had been treated so rudely by most hotel reception staff - in fact at one hotel I was yelled at and nearly forcibly removed from the foyer. Other hotels wanted outrageous prices for rooms - far more than they were worth even in Lijiang. A couple of hotels had rooms they were prepared to offer me but I suddenly realised I probably wouldn't find my way back to them easily with Jerry. The old town is pedestrianised and is a mess of tiny interweaving lanes and canals. There are also over 700 hotels in these streets - most are within courtyards and all have entrance gates which nearly look identical.

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