Day 115: Shuanglang (双廊) – October 10th

Waking up, we figured we really haven’t had any of Dali’s local foods so we went out early morning at 10am (early for us, haha) and tried out all Dali had to offer! It was a hit and miss, but like everything you never knew unless you tried! Dali was great, but it was time to switch places once again.

Up next, we headed to the opposite end of the Erhai lake to Shuanglang. Originally it was a local fishing village, but someone decided this was a great place to welcome tourists, and it’s now in-construction to be the next Lijiang. With numerous restaurants, great looking boutique hotels with lake views and a boardwalk of bars, this place has all it takes to become the ‘next big thing’ for Chinese tourists. It had the feel of a Caribbean resort island, without the hefty price tag.

Looking around, half the place was still under construction!! That being said, the locals were still living there in full bloom, and reminded us somewhat of the remote islands of Hong Kong. There’s a distinct aroma that comes with fishing villages, mainly because of the habit of sun-drying shrimp…

With luck, we found this really cozy hotel which overlooked a small farm and harbour for about 1/3^rd of the going rate other hotels were charging. And surprisingly we were the only guests, while other more expensive places were fully booked!!! Run by a group of young people, it had a great vibe and comfy courtyard, but our room was too nice we definitely made it worth our while. Food in Shuanglang, definitely surprised both of us. For one, we managed to find “Hong Kong Fusion Restaurant”, opened by a middle-aged man from Hong Kong and his wife. They had HK milk tea (>Tibetan milk tea), but the highlight of the night was definitely the table-cooked 叉烧!! They had this ingenious grill, which lets you grill things on top, but served as an oven underneath the grilling plate. Genius! So we had shrimp above, and chicken wings/ 叉烧 at the bottom. As the food was cooking, the lovely owner’s wife would pour out the fat from the meats and drizzle on a dash of honey, resulting in a delectable sweet crust while retaining the juices inside. All that was missing was an egg and two side veggies, and we would’ve had 传说的。。。黯然销魂饭！！！！

We also found, quite possibly the best dessert spot in the whole of China. Fruit + Home-made Yogurt spiked with honey was excellent (seriously, how do you make yogurt so good??), and their 杨芝甘露 was better than anything we’ve ever had.

Not sure how this happens in such a remote place, but the food here was so good…..or maybe because we just miss this stuff.