Dali has been a place where people stop for longer than they intended since the 1980s, when the old town on the western shore of Erhai Lake became a stop on the overland route through Yunnan. The result is unusual in China: a small city with a settled community of long-stay visitors, and an accommodation market built around them rather than around tour groups. The building stock suits it. The Bai minority architecture of the Dali plain is courtyards and two-storey houses, and many have been converted into guesthouses with a handful of rooms, a garden and a resident owner.
The buildings
Bai houses in the Dali area follow a set form: a courtyard with a decorative screen wall facing the gate, a main two-storey wing, side wings, and a heavy tiled roof with upturned eaves and painted or carved timber details, often in blue and white. In the villages around the lake the same pattern appears in farmhouses, and several have become guesthouses where breakfast is served in the courtyard. Even a modest room here feels different to a city hotel: the light comes from the yard, the walls are whitewashed stone, and the woodwork is carved.
The cafe and co-working layer
The old town and the lakeside villages support a dense layer of small businesses catering to people staying for weeks: bakeries, coffee roasters, vegetarian restaurants, bookshops, yoga studios and cafes with power sockets and long tables. The standard of coffee is high by Chinese provincial standards, partly because the long-stay population is demanding. This is a good place to break a long trip, and guesthouses happily arrange bicycles, drivers and day trips to the Cangshan mountains and the lake villages.
Practical notes
Dali is a stop on the Kunming to Lijiang rail line, which is fast and easy, and the old town is a short ride from the station. Staying in the old town puts you in the middle of the cafe layer; staying in one of the lakeside villages or in Xizhou to the north is quieter and more rural, but you will need a bicycle or a car. Rooms in the best courtyard guesthouses book out in the Chinese holidays and through the summer, so reserve ahead. Altitude at Dali is around two thousand metres, which is enough to notice on the first day.
