Mountains on one side, lake on the other
On my first morning in Dali I woke in a courtyard guesthouse, walked out of the north gate of the old town, and had to stop and look. The Cangshan range rose straight up behind the rooftops, snow on the high ridge, and in front of it the whole plain ran flat to the Erhai lake, a sheet of water so still it looked laid on the ground rather than poured into it. A woman was selling 乳扇, the grilled cheese fans of the Bai people, from a charcoal brazier on the corner. I bought two for ten yuan and ate them walking, with rose jam running down my wrist. That is Dali: a view you cannot get used to, and food you eat standing up.
Dali is the kind of place that ruins people for other destinations. It sits at 2,000 meters on a plateau in western Yunnan, between the mountains and the lake, and its old town is a walkable Ming-era grid of about 4 by 3 kilometers. It was the capital of the Nanzhao kingdom and then the Dali kingdom for five centuries before Kublai Khan’s armies arrived in 1253, and the Bai people who make up most of the population still run the villages, the markets, and the tie-dye workshops around the lake. A Dali citywalk covers the old town in a day, the lake shore in another, and the Bai villages in a third, and the food, sour fish, grilled cheese, rice noodles in every shape, carries the whole trip.
This guide walks the three Dalis: the old town, the Erhai lake shore, and the Bai villages of Xizhou and Zhoucheng. Prices are from 2024 and 2025 visits; confirm current entry fees with official sources. For the wider picture, our Dali travel guide covers arrival, altitude, and the lake loop.
Quick facts
- Old town sits at about 2,000 meters; Cangshan rises to 4,122 meters behind it, Erhai Lake runs 40 kilometers in front
- The walled old town is a Ming-era grid, roughly 4 by 3 kilometers, with four gates and walkable streets
- High-speed rail from Kunming takes about 2 hours; from Lijiang about 2 hours
- Bai food is the local kitchen: sour-spicy fish, milk fan cheese, rice noodles, and three-course tea
- The Erhai lake circuit runs about 130 kilometers; most visitors do the west shore by bike
- October and November are the clearest months; summer is the mushroom and rain season
The old town: four gates and a grid
Start at the South Gate (南门), the best-preserved of the four gates, and walk north up 复兴路, the main street. It is a mile of souvenir shops, silver vendors, and 乳扇 grills, and it is the least interesting street in town, which is the honest first thing to say about it. The point is the grid behind it: the old town was laid out in 1382 as a Ming garrison town, and the lanes still run north-south and east-west with almost no drift, so you can walk anywhere and know where you are.
Turn east onto 护国路, the old Foreigner Street, where the backpacker era left its cafes and bakeries, and then west onto 人民路, the heart of the town’s current life: cafes with laptops, craft shops, and the Bai-run restaurants that feed the neighborhood. At the center stands the Wuhua Tower (五华楼), a rebuilt Tang-era viewing tower that you can climb for a few yuan, and the view from the top explains the town plan in one look.
The old town’s surprise is the Catholic church on the east side, built in the 1920s by French missionaries in a Bai-Chinese hybrid style, with the curved eaves and painted beams of a local temple wrapped around a cross. Services happen on Sundays and visitors are welcome outside them. The town’s Muslim quarter, small and centuries old, sits in the northwest lanes and runs a few good noodle shops.
Do the old town twice: once in the morning, when the lanes belong to the residents and the delivery scooters, and once at night, when the bars on Renmin Road fill and the whole grid glows. The morning version is the one I love. Our Dali food guide covers the restaurants and the Bai banquet side.
Chongsheng Temple and the three pagodas
Two kilometers northwest of the old town, the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple (崇圣寺三塔) stand in a plain below the mountain. The main pagoda, the Qianxun Tower, is 69 meters of brick, sixteen stories, square and stacked like a rocket, built in the Nanzhao period in the 9th century; the two smaller towers beside it were added in the 10th century, and the group has survived every earthquake in the record, including the big one in 1925 that flattened the town. It is one of the oldest standing buildings in southwest China and the symbol of Yunnan’s kingdoms.
The temple complex behind the pagodas was rebuilt on the original footprint and runs up the mountain slope, hall after hall, and the grounds are genuinely beautiful. Entry runs roughly 75 to 100 yuan depending on the ticket type as of 2025; confirm the current rate. Go early, walk the grounds, then photograph the pagodas from the reflection pond across the road, where the classic shot of the main tower mirrored in the water is taken. Two hours is enough.
The lake shore: west shore by bicycle
The Erhai Lake (洱海) shore is the other half of Dali, and the west shore is the half to ride. Rent a bike or a scooter in the old town, 30 to 80 yuan a day, and follow the lakeside road north from the town toward Caicun (才村), the fishing village at the lake’s edge. The route runs flat along the water, past the dragon-head dock at Longkan, through the S-bend at Panxi (磻溪), where the road curves against the water and every photographer in China has taken the same photograph, and on to Majiuyi (马久邑), where the willows and the inlets give the lake its postcard look.
Stop wherever the mood takes you; the whole point of the west shore is the slowness. The villages along it, Caicun, Panxi, Majiuyi, have turned into a strip of lakeside cafes, and a coffee with the lake in front of you costs 30 to 60 yuan. Sunrise on the west shore, when the water is glass and the mountain reflects whole, is the single best hour in Dali, and it requires an early start and a bike. Our Erhai Lake guide covers the full loop, the east shore, and the villages.
Xizhou and the Bai villages
Twenty kilometers north of the old town, Xizhou (喜洲) is the Bai village that survived the tourist wave with its dignity intact. It was a merchant town on the tea-horse road, and the wealth shows in the courtyard houses, the best of which, the Yan family compound (严家大院), is open as a museum for a small fee, a maze of Bai architecture with painted beams and a private theater. The village square still holds the morning market, and the side lanes sell the town’s specialty: 喜洲粑粑, the Xizhou bing, a thick flatbread baked against the walls of a clay oven, sold two ways, sweet with rose jam and brown sugar, or salty with scallion and lard, 10 to 15 yuan each and best eaten hot from the oven.
North of Xizhou, the Haitong peninsula (海舌公园) pushes a tongue of land into the lake, a slow walk out and back through the pines with water on both sides. Further along the shore at Zhoucheng (周城), the tie-dye workshops run the Bai tradition of 扎染, indigo resist dyeing, and you can spend an hour making a scarf for 50 to 150 yuan. The Butterfly Spring (蝴蝶泉), further east, is a small park with a pond and a legend; it is pleasant and it is not worth a special trip.
The Bai food in these villages is the plainest and the best in the region: 凉鸡米线, cold chicken rice noodles; 酸辣鱼, the sour-spicy lake fish that is the regional signature; and 饵块, the grilled rice cake that the breakfast stalls wrap around a youtiao and a smear of sauce for 5 to 10 yuan. For the wider Yunnan table, our Yunnan cuisine guide covers the mushrooms and the minority cooking. If you are here in the mushroom months, our mushroom season guide explains what is worth ordering.
What to eat in Dali
| Dish | What it is | Where | Price (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rushan (乳扇) | Bai cheese fan, grilled, with rose jam | Old town corners, village stalls | 10 to 20 yuan |
| Erkuai (饵块) | Grilled rice cake wrap with sauce and youtiao | Breakfast stalls, old town | 5 to 10 yuan |
| Ersi (饵丝) | Rice-flour noodles in broth, the local breakfast | Noodle shops citywide | 8 to 15 yuan |
| Xizhou bing (喜洲粑粑) | Clay-oven flatbread, sweet or salty | Xizhou village | 10 to 15 yuan |
| Sour-spicy fish (酸辣鱼) | Lake fish in a sour chili broth, the regional dish | Bai restaurants, lakeside | 60 to 100 yuan |
| Carved plum (雕梅) | Bai carved plum in honey wine, an appetizer | Bai restaurants, markets | 15 to 30 yuan |
| Three-course tea (三道茶) | Bitter, sweet, aftertaste; the Bai welcome ceremony | Xizhou, village teahouses | 30 to 60 yuan per person |
| Wild mushroom hot pot (野生菌火锅) | June to October only; Yunnan’s famous funghi | Restaurants citywide, in season | 100 to 200 yuan |
One warning on the mushrooms: they are one of the great foods of the world and they are cooked wrong at your peril. Eat them at a restaurant, never buy market funghi to cook yourself in a guesthouse kitchen, and do not expect anyone to serve you raw. The restaurants that specialize in them will show you the timer they use for the broth.
When Dali walks best
October and November are the best months on the plateau: dry, clear, 15 to 22 C afternoons, and the mountain visible every day. December through February is cool and sunny, cold nights, and the lake gets sharp and blue; the town is quiet and the rates drop. Spring, March to May, is windy, and the wind on Erhai is no joke; it bends the willows flat and closes the boats. Summer, June through September, is the rain and mushroom season: afternoons of cloudburst, muddy lake edges, and the funghi at their peak, and it is also when domestic tourists arrive.
Avoid the first week of October and the Spring Festival week, when the old town’s lanes fill and the lakeside cafes run out of seats.
Getting around
Dali Station, on the high-speed line, sits about 15 kilometers southeast of the old town, connected by bus and taxi for 40 to 60 yuan; Dali’s older station handles conventional trains. Inside the old town, everything is on foot or by scooter, 40 to 60 yuan a day. For the lake shore, rent a bike in the old town and ride north; for Xizhou and Zhoucheng, the buses run from the old town’s east gate every 20 minutes for a few yuan. Taxis to the Three Pagodas run 15 to 25 yuan. The whole area is small enough that three or four days covers it without a car.
Frequently asked questions
How many days does Dali need?
Three. One for the old town on foot, one for the west shore by bike at sunrise, one for Xizhou and the Bai villages. Four if you want the Three Pagodas unhurried and a slow afternoon on Renmin Road.
Is Dali’s altitude a problem?
At 2,000 meters most people feel nothing, though the first day’s uphill walk will leave you more breathless than expected. It is far below the level where altitude sickness matters; our altitude guide covers the thresholds if you are continuing to Tibet.
Is the old town too touristy?
The main street and the bar street are. The lanes behind them are not, and the morning old town is a living Bai neighborhood. Stay a night, wake early, and walk the grid before 8 a.m. and you get the real place.
Can I swim in Erhai Lake?
Locals do, and the west shore villages have swim sheds, but the lake is a protected water source and the water quality fluctuates; it is not a beach-resort experience. Go for the view, the bikes, and the cafes, not the swim.
What is the best way to see the lake?
Bike the west shore at sunrise, from Caicun north to Majiuyi and back, about 30 kilometers round trip with stops. The full 130-kilometer loop is a scooter day, and the east shore toward Shuanglang is a half-day by car or scooter.
Is Dali good for vegetarians?
Yes, more than most of China. The Bai and Yunnan traditions use mushrooms, beans, and pickles heavily, and the old town’s cafe culture has proper vegetarian restaurants. Our vegetarian guide covers the specifics.
Should I base in the old town or by the lake?
Old town for the food and the walking; the lakeside villages of Caicun and Majiuyi for the sunrise and quiet. I split the difference: two nights in the old town, one by the lake if the budget allows.
If you want Dali folded into a wider Yunnan route, with the Bai villages, the lake loop, and the mushroom season mapped to your dates, send us a note through the contact page and we will draft a custom food-and-travel itinerary.
Written by the ChinaTravelFood editorial team.
