Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

Sichuan-Tibet Step One: Kunming to Dali

Dali, a town nestled between the mountains and an odd, ear-shaped lake, often marks the first stop after Kunming on a tour of Yunnan. It isn't difficult to see why. Dali represents the three elements that attract people to Yunnan in the first place: beautiful scenery, minority culture, and a laid-back vibe.

Like its northern neighbor Lijiang, Dali has been transformed by tourism. The "ancient town" is lined with souvenir shop after souvenir shop, catering to mainly wealthier Chinese tourists hoping to bring a bit of minority culture into their homes in Shanghai or Beijing. Package tourists wearing identical pink hats followed a colorfully-dressed Bai woman as she barked into a megaphone. Dreadlocked backpackers wandered around amidst local women hissing "Ganja! Hashish"

Down a side street, I walked past cafes offering the same stale combination of western and Chinese food, dodging umbrella-wielding tourists who all inconveniently appear to be eight inches or so shorter than me. (I hadn't ever had to wear sunglasses to avoid being poked in the eye before).

Central Dali does have a certain charm; or at least it's clear to see that it once did. The neat buildings today all look pre-fabricated, as if the government had them carried across China in trucks. I couldn't help but wonder how Dali would have been twenty, thirty years earlier before mass tourism placed it firmly on the map.

Fortunately, I didn't have to wonder for long. A mere ten minute walk from Dali's old-town has a perfectly preserved old-town, simply without any of the tourists. In fact, there weren't many locals either; it's clear that the Dali natives who remained either flocked to capitalize on the tourist trade or else went to Xiaguan, a larger modern Chinese city about a half-hour up the road.

So what's left amounts to a veritable ghost town, untainted by China's modernization whatsoever. There were no banana pancakes or Beer Lao bottles here- just cozy little dumpling stands and old women selling fruit. Wandering even further away from the old town, I came across a field with nothing but a scarecrow and a few menacing dogs. The road had stopped, and only a muddy path remained.

Last year, at about the same time, I remembered Dali as a great cycling town with plenty of tall hills and narrow dirt paths leading to the lake. This year, Yunnan's incessant summer rain kept us indoors much of the time. Fortunately, Michael and I stumbled upon a Japanese-run cafe/guesthouse with cheap beer and a very groovy courtyard. Hardly the worst place to while away an afternoon.