Dali views

Dali itself was once a small village on a glacial valley floor between Er Hai lake and Cang Shan mountain. Its 2000m altitude provides an ideal climate to go with the views. There is now a new city, Xiaguan, at the southern end of the lake, and the old town of Dali has been renovated, or more correctly, re-olded, with the addition of many tourist shops, bars and restaurants. It teams with tourists, mainly from China, with some low-season, low-budget Europeans and Americans, and a conspicuous handful who seem to have drifted in from Kathmandu over the last 40 years, with their Ravi Shankar albums (did he have more than one?) in their embroidered shoulder bags. This is a photo of Dali about 30 years ago.