Today, after breakfast, we left Shangri-La and headed back to Dali.
On our way back, we stop by Shaxi Ancient Town, which is the only surviving ancient market on the “Tea Horse Ancient Road” also known as “The place where the wind blows”.
Very pretty, little quiet ancient town, in comparison to the rest of the other ancient towns we have been to, which is maybe why I like this ancient town the most. Not as commercial, not as touristy and in Singapore terms, still have the kampong vibes to it.
Tea Horse Ancient Road is actually an ancient trading route similar to the Silk Road between Yunnan and Tibet. You can read more about the history here but when the tour guide was talking about the history, the part that caught my attention was that the caravans were made up of 100 over merchants and only 20% will survive and return 1 or 2 years later. Imagine in the past where there’s no proper road infrastructure and transportation (except for horses). So all these ancient towns became like a stopover or trading post along the long trip. Anyways, I digress. Back to the beautiful pictures.
This coffee place is famous due to a show “Meet Yourself (去有风的地方)”. I didn’t watch it but apparently it has good reviews. Lunch was at a restaurant located in Shaxi Ancient Town and after lunch, we continued onto our journey back to Dali.
We checked into our hotel, Dali Honglongjing Hotel, upon arrival in Dali and there’s a perfectly good reason why. The hotel is located right smacked in Dali Ancient City. Superb good location. Definitely my choice of hotel if I am ever to return to Dali.
After dropping our bags and having a quick rest, we headed out to visit Dali Ancient City. Again, will let the pictures do the talking
Headed back to the hotel for dinner. Dinner tonight is the famous Yunnan crossing-the-bridge noodles (云南过桥米线). Really, you see shops selling this everywhere and I was wondering if I am ever going to have it. Finally.. it is very tasty especially when it’s raining and cold outside. I think I can eat this noodles soup always and never get sick of it.
After dinner, we went back to the ancient city for a walk. Hey, such a good location. Night time has its old charm.
Unfortunately it was still raining and it really dampened the spirits so we head back to the hotel after a short while. We are almost at the end of our trip *cries* and heading back to Kunming tomorrow.
Now before that, a special mention. If you ever go to Yunnan, you will see a lot of such shops selling flower wine in the ancient towns – Lijiang, Dali (I don’t remember seeing it in Shangri-La though). One of our tour members brought 5/6 bottles in Lijiang (it’s heavy) and I asked her about it and she said every Chinese town have the own specialty local wine and the same goes for Dali / Lijiang. So at Dali, we walked into one of the shops and tried. OH MY GOD. They are the best wine I have ever had!
Friends who know me know I like sweet wine, I always have a bottle of Moscato at home. I am always frowned upon whenever I go out and order a glass of Moscato during dinner with friends, no one like sweet wine they said. Well, me. I went into the shop and asked what’s the specialty and she introduced Puer Tea wine, gave me a small sample and that’s it. I am getting it. It’s so unique I don’t think you can get it anywhere else. We went on to try a variety of different wines, Muscat, Rose, Green Plum, Jasmine, Osmanthus, Green Tea etc. Wee couldn’t really differentiate what wine was what wine and trust me, we were pretty high stepping out of the shop. Hah. Some of the alcohol were like 21% alcohol.
We only brought 4 bottles as we didn’t know how much we can carry back to Singapore. But it’s a MUST BUY, PLEASE BUY if you are one that like wine, especially sweet wine.
