Feeling good in Jamaica
Actually, we've never been to Jamaica--it's the only tourism related tagline I could recall. (And it's what? over 20 years old?) If there are any taglines to entice folks to visit Dali, I don't know them. But that's what we did. Visit Dali, I mean.I suppose I should clarify something upfront. Dali is the name of both a city and the prefecture it's in. In the past, when students (such as Gail and Whitney) said they were from Dali, we assumed they came from the city. It turns out that the old city of Dali itself is somewhat small and neither of our hosts live within its walls. Ah, well, live and learn.
Gail's hometown of Hongyuan, which I've mentioned previously, is south of Dali proper. The next morning we hired a mien bao che--small van to you non-Chinese speakers--to take us up to Xiaguan. Now when you take a bus to Dali from other parts of Yunnan, odds are you'll end up in Xiaguan. It's the big city with the bus and train stations, all the tall buildings and what not. It was there we hooked up with our other student, Whitney. We saw a couple sights in Xiaguan, including a structure I've taken to call the Pinball Palace. Mostly Xiaguan struck me as a smaller and cleaner version of Kunming. Lots of buildings, lots of traffic and big city buses for getting around.
After lunch, which by the way was at KFC--probably the worst meal of the whole trip--not that it was bad, it was just that the other meals were so good. Anyway, after lunch we hopped a city bus up to Dali proper. It was a nice twenty minute ride up the coast of Erhai lake. The ancient city of Dali is actually a walled city--something that still impresses this not-so-traveled Americano. It has a distinct style of architecture. The buildings seem to be predominantly made of grey stone with tile roofs that have the curved corners. The upper portions of the walls are more often than not illustrated with pictures or designs. (The best picture I have of it is actually from the Ethnic Minorities villages in Kunming.) We call the style Bai, though I'm not sure if it is actually comes from that people group. (Fine travel writer I'm turning out to be!) The city itself, or at least the part we saw, is quite clean and well maintained.
That makes sense, since the ancient city of Dali is a definite tourist trap. Lots of things to see, lots of places to shop and lots of places to obtain Bai clothing. Dali, of course, is the homeland of the Bai ethnic minority. How many Bai actually live there, however, I have to wonder. (the only Bai student I've met actually lives here in our town--her great-grandfather moved here from Dali and registered as a Han person.) It seems that half the women there wear at least part of the traditional costume. I have three theories as to why that is. The first is that they are actually Bai and proud of their heritage and all that. The second is that the tourists come to Dali expecting to see Bai people so the shopkeepers and other residents dress that way to make the visitors happy. The third is that there are so many Bai costumes manufactured for sale to the tourists that buying one second hand is incredibly cheap. Whatever the reason, the outfits are quite nice to look at.
We spent the night in Dali and then in the morning headed outside of town for a cable car ride up Cang mountain. There are some maintained trails up there and we spent the morning having a look around and dodging snowballs thrown by my daughters. (I refrained from retaliation. Not that I am such a man of peace but rather that the stuff on the ground was old snow. Snowball fights are a lot more fun when the snow is fresh.) After a quick lunch back in the old town, we grabbed another mien bao che up north to the town of Hudiequan--Butterfly Spring.
posted by John @ 6:11 PM
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