All this week, Jaunted special embed Claire Duffett will be relaying the joys and jumbles of her travels through Southwest China including Tibet. Today, discovering the cute cultural town of Dali:
Sandwiched between a mountain and a 22-kilometer lake, Dali is a small, walled town next to a real Chinese city that doesn’t try to be charming and whose tallest building is a multi-story Wal-Mart. We found it helpful to split our time between the Disneyland of Dali and the real world of its neighboring city and the “real” people who ride the public buses throughout. Boat rides are expensive but lovely, as is the cable car ride to the top of the hill behind the town.
Fewer Chinese tourists and more western hippies give the town of Dali an atmosphere distinct from Lijiang, its neighbor four hours northwest which often stands in the spotlight due to its bigger size and history. Both towns come with stone streets and open waterways that run alongside the sidewalks and over quaint, wooden wheels. The atmosphere is charming to some and hopelessly contrived to others. We were among the tourists who embraced it.]]>