Day 114: Dali (大理) – October 9th

Dali old town is an interesting place. It is home to the Bai people, who have developed their own cultural and architectural styles compared to the Naxi people of Lijiang. The old town is smitten with bars (geared towards foreigners), cozy coffee shops and delicious little stores with local dishes. On the flip side, there’s several schools in the area and every so often you’d see a rush of students overwhelming the streets buying snacks! Dali is also home to one of the early churches built by Catholic missionaries, and despite it being a Catholic church, it was built in the local architectural style.

Dali offers a lot of activities, but we were lazy, and a bit sick, so we slept in, grabbed lunch at a 潮洲 restaurant (food in Yunnan is good!) and headed back to the hostel for a nap (instead of sitting down for a coffee and reading, this was the next best alternative). When we were hungry, we woke up and had some delicious BBQ-chicken wings for dinner. O, what a life!