02 Dali - Lijiang

26th October 2025 - Drive from Dali to Lijiang
We left our Dali Hotel in the morning after breakfast and we first visited Chongsheng Three Pagodas Temple on the outskirts of Dali Town. 

We then drove to Lijiang and checked into Deting Hotel near Old / Ancient town of Lijiiang. The story goes that the old town was with many water canals with walking paths along both sides of the waterway lined with flower beds. This has been recreated and renovated with modern lights and flower beds to create a festive atmosphere that attracts many tourists from all over China. 

The atmosphere, walking around the Old Town in the neon-lit area is electric and unbelievably festive. See the Videos at the bottom of this page.

History of Old Town (from Wikipedia):

The town has a history going back more than 1,000 years and was once a confluence for trade along the "Old Tea Horse Caravan Trail". The Dayan Old town is famous for its orderly system of waterways and bridges, a system fast becoming but a memory as the underground water table drops, probably due to over-building in the suburban areas.

Lijiang's culture combines traditional Nakhi culture and incongruous elements learned from Ming dynasty Han Chinese traders who settled in the region centuries ago. Nakhi people have kept alive a timber and mud brick housing style which they learned from Nanjing traders. Local carpenters still build elaborately constructed timber house frames from memory without blueprints or other diagrams. These houses are often enhanced by detailed flower and bird carvings on the windows. The carvings are now made by ethnic Bai artisans, but attention is given to depicting the flora and fauna of the four seasons in the traditional Han Chinese manner. Even impoverished farming families gather their resources to install carved windows, and seem to consider them more important than furniture for the house. The window panels are available for sale to tourists. See Link: Old Town of Lijiang - Wikipedia