Dali
~Aaron
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| Tea Horse Road |
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Tea Horse Road Day 2:
Kunming, Dali |
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Gate of Dali Ancient Town
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| Gate of Dali Ancient Town |
Dali, our second stop along the Tea-Horse Road, had many exciting things to do. It is one of the most popular and beautiful towns in China. The Dali Ancient Town has many delicious foods. The Tianlong Cave is similar to Shilin. The Erhai Lake is a very fun place.
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Wuhua Building 五华楼
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Wuhua Building 五华楼
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The Dali Ancient Town has many structures. This old town kept the traditional Chinese style, with tiled roofs and white-washed walls. The Wuhua Building (五华楼) was founded in 856, and was the national hotel during Nanzhao Dynasty. The Foreigner’s Street （洋人街） is also known as Huguo Road because Yunnan people built an army to protect the country when Yuan Shikai called himself emperor. It also has many tasty foods, like baked cheese (the cheese special to Dali), 烤乳扇. We followed a Dali Ancient City tour guide, a Bai girl （白族）, to visit.
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| Street view of Dali Ancient Town |
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| Foreigner's Street and its store merchandise (beautiful wood curving) |
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Bai dance performance and our Bai tour guide
白族歌舞 和白族导游姐姐
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The cable car
to the top of
Cangshan Mountain
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View Erhai Lake
from Cangshan Mountain
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The Tianlong Cave （天龙洞）is a natural ancient karst cave found in Tang Dynasty. The cave is 8 million years old. The name came from its shape, like a horizontal lying dragon. It has many interesting rock formation shapes to view. It locates at the top of Cangshan Mountain （苍山）, so we rode a cable car to the top. A stone “Celestial Frog’ lies on a rock. A hole above the stairs has 3 “figures” (I think the middle one looks like a bunny). We couldn’t exactly decide on where the White King’s Palace was, because there were 3 possible holes! The location of the Celestial Cover Stone is very obvious, it’s right above your head (however, this is only for a section of the cave). A stone waterfall is outlined in blue light at the right of steep stairs.
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| From left: Tianlong Cave entrance, Celestial Frog, Celestial Cover Stone |
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| View of Erhai Lake from Cangshan Mountain |
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| Erhai Lake |
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| Erhai Lake |
The Erhai Lake （洱海） is a very cool place. We got to touch the cool water. Many people were fishing along the dock. Some of them managed successfully, like one who caught many shrimp and a fish. One was so unlucky he caught a piece of water grass!
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| Erhai Lake |
Dali is an amazing place. The Dali Ancient Town has many historical buildings. The Tianlong Cave is full of shaped rocks that were carved by water. What’s funny about Erhai Lake is that the direct translation of its Chinese is actually Ear Sea (people in Dali have never seen the sea, so they call lakes seas)! The lake is shaped like a person's ear. This city contains many wonderful things.
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| From left: our hotel built in Bai style, hotel view to Cangshan Mountain, hotel view to Erhai Lake |
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| Dali baked cheese 烤乳扇 |
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