Yunnan III · Dali

This is the third in a series of posts about our family trip to Yunnan.

Dali in Yunnan, China may be the best place I’ve ever visited.

In my last post, I talked about Kunming — the capital of Yunnan province and our entry point into the region. What makes Yunnan special is that it sits at elevation, yet just north of the tropics, so you get a mild climate with lush vegetation and exceptional food. What makes this area — which scholars call Zomia — so unique is that for thousands of years, the people here led an independent existence with only an arm’s length relationship to nearby civilizations like the Han Chinese. The culture here developed largely on its own. There are dozens of ethnic minorities, each with their own languages, traditions, and clothing. They all speak Mandarin, but also at least one other language at home.

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In Kunming, we didn’t feel any of that — it feels like any large Chinese city. In Dali, we could feel that presence.

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In the Western world, when people want to rest, eat well, and feel alive, their minds go to the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia. I’ve been to some of those places. None of them came close to giving me what Dali did. I say this having traveled widely in Asia, and as someone who married into a Chinese family and has been learning the language for years — I’m not arriving with fresh eyes. I’m arriving with context.

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Home base

Erhai Lake Ecological Corridor

Dali is shaped by a few geographical features. To the west, a range of mountains runs along the side of Erhai — a long, narrow lake. Around the lake is flat land that has been home to the Bai people for millennia. Near the center of the western shore is the ancient city; the modern city sits at the southern end. We arrived by high-speed rail, and our driver took us to the area near the ancient city, right on the water — that became home for our stay.

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All along the drive, the architecture caught our attention. Some things were familiar — businesses on the ground floor, residences above — but the walls, rooftops, and painted artwork were unlike anything we’d seen.

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The area we stayed in is the Erhai Lake Ecological Corridor (洱海生态廊道). Over the past decade, the Chinese government worked to protect the lake from pollution and urban sprawl. The entire lakeshore was declared an ecological corridor — no housing in the buffer zone, car access cut off along large stretches. The section we were in had over 50 kilometers of trails open to walkers, runners, and cyclists. Every half kilometer or so, clusters of electric mopeds and small vehicles were available to rent with a local WeChat account. About 50 meters back from the water is where the houses, restaurants, and hotels sit.

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The home we stayed at is owned by art collectors from a distant city. It’s both an art project and a way of sharing their love of this place with friends and guests. We had it to ourselves since there were no other guests during the winter. The hosts were away, so their friend, a professor at Dali University, acted as our guide alongside the housekeeper who lives on the premises.

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Every morning after my run around the lake, we ate at home. Breakfasts were a mix — avocado toast some days, Bai noodles others. We also had coffee from a place called Fuyu Coffee, which we later stopped at to buy beans. It’s low-key, housed in traditional buildings, but serious. They source beans globally, roast on site, and on demand. When we bought some, they didn’t let us buy too much (fearing it would go stale), and shipped our selections directly to Shanghai, timed to arrive as we passed through on the way home.

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In the evenings we ate simple Bai food, and I started to understand what makes this region distinctive. The techniques are Chinese — watching our housekeeper cook, the methods looked familiar. But there were always small additions, ingredients that tilted toward Southeast Asia. My palate has been shaped by Indian roots, the American Southwest, and East Asia — and something about this cuisine, sitting at exactly that confluence, felt made for me. Simple food, different flavors, and still warm and comforting after a long day out.

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Tea Horse Road

Fengyang Yi Tea Horse Road

The people of Zomia weren’t isolated — they had an arm’s length relationship with civilization, which meant trade. A lot of that trade moved along what Chinese people call the Tea Horse Road. Like the Silk Road, many waypoints are still alive today — some as cities, others as old towns that give you a sense of what came before.

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Fengyang Yi (凤阳邑) sits at the foot of the mountains behind Dali. Locals say the Three Pagodas — visible from most high points in the region — were built with bricks fired here. You can see that legacy in the construction; the buildings are different from anything else we visited in Dali.

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To experience the road, my wife and younger one took a horse along the horse-guiding stones at the center of the road while my oldest and I walked and ran to keep up. The village sits just above the road’s entrance, and after the hike we came back down to explore.

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The town feels in stasis. Houses crumbled and roofless, vegetation reclaiming them. But new businesses run by graduates and artists occupy the same lanes. The old-new contrast here isn’t glass towers next to ancient walls — it’s young creatives moving into a place continuously inhabited for hundreds of years. Unknown to most of the world, it’s being rediscovered from within. We happened across a small gallery and café that students had assembled from found materials in an old home.

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Qiuyuan Café

One of those places combining old and new was Qiuyuan Café (楸园咖啡 CAFE) — up a few stairs from the road, inside a timber-framed building with brick and rammed-earth walls. Everything inside feels worn but solid. A café cat made its rounds while we found a spot on the back balcony.

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As throughout China, the coffee was excellent. I tried a pour-over with Yunnan beans — I usually drink Ethiopian for the fruitiness, but these had a floral quality I hadn’t encountered before.

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We didn’t know it at the time, but this café is a destination in peak season. It was a filming location for the 2023 drama Meet Yourself, playing the Gesanghua Hotel. Search in English and you find almost nothing; search on Xiaohongshu and you find thousands of posts. This is a microscopic version of Dali’s condition in general: mostly illegible outside Chinese media.

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Dezang Chanyuan

For lunch, we walked over to Dezang Chanyuan (德藏馋院). Past the high walls, we entered a courtyard with stones, gardens, and a koi pond. The ground floor has a tea area and private dining rooms; the second floor is a library with book-lined walls and large windows. The guiding aesthetic is Zen Buddhist. Though I don’t yet fully understand Zen Buddhism, I could feel the tranquility.

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Just outside the kitchen was an outdoor dining table with a built-in coal burner. The pea shoots came accented with mint — something I’d never tasted in China before. The rice had local mushrooms mixed in, familiar and entirely unlike anything I’d had.

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If we weren’t on a family trip, I could have spent half a day reading, writing, eating, and drinking tea. Zen Buddhism is far from my Hindu roots, but I felt the connection. The vegetarian food was comforting, and the courtyard calmed my mind.

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Old towns

Haweiyuan · Simao restaurant

On the day we went to see an old town, we stopped at Haweiyuan (哈味园·思茅菜馆) at our guide’s recommendation. I didn’t spend enough time to understand the fine differences between the cuisines of the various ethnicities in the region. But the way these restaurants are set up is unlike what I’m used to — this felt like someone’s home, and may have been. The kitchen was modest but capable. The tea was exceptional, and not incidentally: this region has been working to raise the profile of its tea within China and beyond.

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Xizhou Wheat Field Miniature Train & Old town

After lunch, we walked to Xizhou (喜洲) — a commercial center on the western shore of Erhai for centuries. I’m told a scholar of architecture would recognize buildings spanning styles from the Ming Dynasty to the present.

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First stop: the Wind Train, a vintage tourist train looping through the farmland. It was quieter in winter, but still filled with tourists before leaving the station. I heard that in summer the waits are long, though you’re rewarded with green wheat fields on all sides.

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After the ride, we explored the old town. A dizzying mix of commerce — matcha cafés, Parisian-style bakeries, local pastries, dried meats, tea. My wife fell in love with the clothing and handiwork. Places with lush vegetation and vibrant cuisine tend to have vibrant color in their crafts as well, and this town was no different.

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Cangshan mountain

Jizhao An (Serenity Nunnery)

On one of my morning runs along the lake path, I struck up a conversation with a man on a bike — a tour guide who helps hikers reach the higher peaks. My wife had already planned our visit to Jizhao An (寂照庵), which sits on a slope above Dali and is reached by a short but steep hike. People in decent shape had no trouble. My older one managed while my younger one rode my shoulders most of the way up.

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At the top: a temple and nunnery unlike anything we’d seen. Succulents covered the walls and filled the courtyard. We arrived before lunch to a line snaking hundreds of meters around the grounds. Three or four dollars each bought unlimited food, cooked and served by the nuns. Vegetarian, wholesome. The only rule was to not waste anything. I couldn’t see how I would.

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The food felt like home. The focus wasn’t simply nourishing. The hike followed by a quiet lunch in that setting is a combination I’d take again and again.

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Cangshan Mountain Cable Cars

After lunch, we took the cable cars up to one of the peaks. The Cangshan Mountain Cable Cars (苍山索道) dates to 1999, Austrian gondolas over a two-and-a-half kilometer span. We’d spotted hikers on the way up — not an option with our kids and the time we had.

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From the top, the beauty at street level dissolved into white. I took in the full scale of Erhai. I’d always wondered why people call it a hai — a sea — rather than a lake. Seeing it below me, I understood.

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I tried to imagine Dali hundreds, or thousands, of years before. So much here is new, and yet so much predates anything I really understand. Looking down, I felt at home. Erhai resembled the San Francisco Bay. The buildings below looked like the peninsula where I live. The mountains felt like the Santa Cruz range.

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Different languages, different buildings, different food — and yet the landscape felt just like home.

New institutions

For a long time, what made Dali extraordinary was built entirely from within — by people who already knew why it was worth knowing, with no interest in explaining themselves to the outside world. These two institutions are examples of how that is slowly changing: a museum connecting to the global world of photography, and a university drawing students from neighboring countries.

Cangshan Natural Image Museum

The Cangshan Natural Image Museum (苍山自然影像博物馆) was founded by one of China’s most celebrated wildlife photographers — born and raised in Dali. Xi Zhinong’s (奚志农) work has won some of the world’s top prizes, which required becoming a kind of hybrid: part outdoorsman, spending long stretches in the wilderness, and part photographer capturing images most people will never witness.

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The gallery holds his work alongside other photographers’. I’ve never pursued wildlife photography, but the museum gave me a new appreciation for the form — and for what happens when photography merges with the outdoors to become something else entirely. Beyond the gallery are a café, an education center, and housing for visiting photographers.

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Dali University

Our guide being a professor at Dali University (大理大学) gave us access most visitors don’t get — China’s campuses are closed to the public, and without a connection, you can’t enter (as I learned the hard way in Suzhou a few years before). The university is new, without the mix of old and modern buildings I’ve seen elsewhere. It has a large international student population; it’s among the better, more affordable medical universities in Asia.

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The campus sits in the hills above the lake, with open space between buildings — groves of flowering trees, ponds of black swans, walking paths. The library offered views across campus and Dali below, including the pagodas.

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I always love visiting campuses — you get a sense of how a place sees its future. Some lean toward arts, others science, some toward their history. This one looks forward. Without this visit, it would be easy to leave thinking Dali is a historical artifact. It isn’t. It’s a living city, growing on its own terms.

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Why I’ll be back

Throughout our visit, I was engulfed by emotion. Part of me wanted to sell everything and move there. My body felt in sync with the elevation — running came easier than anywhere else. Every meal was the right balance of delicious, fresh, and healthy — a cuisine that, as I’d felt from that first evening, seemed made for someone with my history.

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Why isn’t this place more popular? I already think China is underrated as a destination. Japan was underrated a decade ago, but it’s being over-touristed now. China isn’t on the map for Western travelers — and Yunnan, certainly not.

If anyone asks me where to go to rest their mind, get some exercise, and eat well, I’m sending them to Dali.

I can see why it’s not easy to reach — getting there requiresa connecting flight from one of the major hubs, less convenient than Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong. But the combination of old and new, natural and man-made, can’t be found anywhere else in China.

Part of the disconnect is the Chinese internet. Japan became legible to the West because it shared the web — a translation gives you reviews, guides, blogs. The Chinese internet is out of reach. Google won’t surface what Xiaohongshu has. Every Chinese person I asked thought it was obvious that Yunnan was worth visiting. Many had been, and spoke about it lovingly.

Access is the other piece. China runs on its own apps for everything from payments to renting a battery bank. My wife has a WeChat account tied to her Chinese ID and still couldn’t reserve the electric bikes, requiring my mother-in-law to step in. The infrastructure works, but it requires fluency most Westerners don’t have.

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The French Riviera, the Amalfi Coast, and Bali will still be there. But if what you’re looking for is somewhere to run and eat and think and feel alive, Dali is it. It’s been discovered by Chinese tourists, but not by the West — which means there’s a window before it starts reshaping itself to accommodate Western visitors and all the baggage they bring.

Thanks to Q for reading drafts of this.