Getting back to nature

Last weekend we made the brief 4-hour bus ride north to Dali, a small city that’s snuggled between an immense lake and the edge of the Himalayas.

The bus ride itself offers a spectacular view of the rural countryside north of Kunming. Quite a contrast to the villages on the road to Dongchuan, the houses that dot the highway in little clusters are full of character. The large, whitewashed structures have wooden doorways, clay roof tiles and fabulous, colorful frescoes on the outer walls. The first grouping of houses were decorated with murals of dinosaurs, as this area is famous for it’s dinosaur fossils. Hundreds of houses display every type imaginable from brontosaurus to pterodactyl. The next groupings were my favorite as the murals changed from dinosaurs to folk art circles, brightly colored Buddhist symbols and lotus flowers. And the last groupings? Mushrooms! Big, brown mushrooms of all varieties splashed across the country houses. Every once in a while a Muslim community would appear, obvious by its small mosque and Arabic writing that accompanied the standard frescoes of the surrounding villages.


Dali’s old town holds a similar, though more ancient style of architecture. Primarily a city of Bai people (one of Yunnan’s ethnic minorities), the residents have dramatic costumes of bright colors and intricate embroidery. Dali is a backpacker’s hot spot, so along with the typical tourist shops, there are oodles of hip cafes, hostels and bars and a local bohemian youth scene that’s absent in Kunming. With the snow-capped Cangshan Mountain in the backdrop, the old world architecture and funky aura, Dali is truly a breath of fresh air. We settled on a cheap hostel called the “Tibetan Lodge” and on our first night, hit up the “Funky Monkey Bar” for some pizza and beers. Walking through the old town, we were instantly approached by the local drug dealers – a legacy of Dali. The most interesting thing about the drug trade in this small mountain town is not the inventory nor the price, but rather the nature of the drug dealers themselves who are elderly Bai women. “Pssst… you smoka ganja?” They are fearless and even walk into restaurants and shops accosting foreigners to peddle their narcotics. Later I more clearly understood the popularity of the trade as I noticed cannabis plants growing profusely and wild surrounding the nearby Erhai Lake.

Saturday was blue skies and sunshine with a heat that I wasn’t quite prepared for and later paid dearly with my crispy red flesh. We woke up early and took a chairlift up the mountain, almost clear to the top. Chairlifts in China are the same as at ski resorts elsewhere, minus the snow. The mountainside is littered with tombs and as it was the weekend holiday for tomb sweeping, families were picnicking and cleaning up their ancestors’ gravesites. However, a seasonal burn-ban in this national park actually made for more tomb-littering than tomb cleaning as the Buddhist Chinese couldn’t participate in their rituals of burning incense and paper money, so instead left the items intact and blowing through the forest.

The chairlift let us off at a typical Chinese Buddhist temple. From there we hiked along a 20 km path skirting the edge of the mountain with incredible views of Dali, Erhai Lake, the surrounding countryside and the sheer magnitude of the mountain itself. Despite the paved mountain path, this quintessence of nature that I often forget exists while trapped in the confines of a Chinese city, induced a longing for Alaska and all its purity. The way back down the mountain was a one-hour long, inversed stair-stepping workout. Families playing cards and snacking while lounged out on their ancestor’s tombs shouted friendly greetings as we trudged down the steps in the hot sun.

Charlie, our kindergarten boss and native of Dali, was in town visiting his family for the weekend so met us for some tea in the old town. Later he took me jade shopping for as an avid jade collector, he has many techniques for detecting quality. Color (the whiter the better), sound (a clear, bright tone when struck with another piece of jade is a good sign) and transparency are all things to look for when shopping for the perfect jade. I ended up with a traditional jade bangle that passed all of Charlie’s tests and the greatest test of all – the confines of my wallet. Dali is a craft shopper’s paradise. I also ended up taking home some traditional Bai indigo tie-die/batik tapestries and a pair of Bai mary-jane style purple shoes.

For dinner, it was time to bear down and try an authentic Bai restaurant, which are unmistakable by the large displays of fresh ingredients and live seafood that greet you at the doorstep. Specialty dishes are fried goat cheese and fresh-caught lake fish and enough mushroom varieties alone to make this trip worth the trek. In Chinese there is no word for “mushroom” as there are so many varieties (most of which come from Yunnan) that each has its proper calling.

The final day on this whirlwind trip to Dali was consumed with a 40 km bike ride to Xizhou, a traditional Bai village with a lively market. Along the way we meandered off the main road and dipped into some rural hamlets along the lake. Greeted by children, old men in their blue Mao jackets and women shelling peas, this idyllic serenity was just the thing to cap off my great weekend escape.

Returning back to Kunming, my piles of un-graded papers and the ridiculous city traffic was not the welcome I had hoped for, but I suppose there’s something about “home” and falling into your familiar-smelling pillow that makes the return ticket worth it’s weight.