Dali – Three Pagodas Complex
Before hitting Lijiang, we had spent a day and a night in Dali, a truly lovely town by the side of a long and beautifully blue lake, with tall green
mountains on the west side and medium brownish dry mountains on the east
side. Dali itself was — a thousand years ago or so — seat of the Nanzhou
kingdom, established when the Bai minority (said to have settled this
region perhaps 3000 years ago) fought off the Tang dynasty to establish their own base of power, which lasted until Kublai Khan (of the Yuan dynasty, for those keeping track) retook the region in the 13th C.
Aside from its stunning natural setting, Dali’s key claims to tourist fame are the three pagodas complex (the eponymous structures shown here, along with a few newly built and quite impressive temples which seemed, to my
sophomoric eye, to be rather in the Tang style — not surprising if true, as
the pagodas were first built during the Tang dynasty [mid-8th C, by engineers from Xi’an, not long before the Bai established independence from the Tang], about which see much more further down, in my presentation of a weekend in Xi’an), and its lovely and well-maintained old town with canals and many attractions (from quite nice restaurants to shopping galore) for tourists of all stripes. (PS Lonely Planet tells us these are some of the oldest standing structures in Southwest China.)
Dali – City Wall Views
I’m leading the “city wall views” set with this one since I was simply delighted, throughout northern Yunnan (here, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge
and on the roads between them all) to see the occasional “spring” flowering tree, blooming its little heart out in the dead of January. Clearly down at the lower elevations it’s not too cold during the day, but the nights do get
cold…and yet the plums (or whatever these are) still start blooming, which just signals spring to me, and made my Beijing-winter heart quite happy. The city walls encircle all of the old town, and are well maintained and as yousee planted with lovely trees and flowers in many parts. Really quite lovely.
Tianlong Compound
Thanks to Griff Dye for pointing this rather hidden compound out to me. It’s hard, of course, to miss the pagoda from just about anywhere in town, but since the three pagodas I’ve already shown you quite dominate both the skyline and the guidebooks — and this one doesn’t even appear in some of the guidebooks — it’s easy to miss it. Mercifully I was tipped off to check
it out, and I saw the pagoda and can read the characters so I realized what this was. It’s technically closed for renovation (such a common story in China these days…), which gives it such a lovely empty, moderately abandoned feel. As you’ll see though, there’s some really lovely architecture here.
(so much world, so little time....) 