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Er-Hai Lake and Shaxi to Er-Yuan

Posted on 22. Dec, 2009 by yoyo in Yunnan

Or: Dali- Shuang-Lang  -  Sha-Ping  -  Shaxi  -  Er-Yuan  -  Dali

Getting utterly bored of Dali’s old city, after spending 6 nights there as Dor was sick, we decided to make a change. Dali itself, the old city that is, is a big, extremely touristic (though Chinese more than foreign tourists), walled shopping area. but, on the very good other hand - it’s warm(er), full of great food, and cheap, even in Chinese standarts. we stayed at the Jade-Emu guesthouse, which is probably the best value guesthouse i’ve seen (read more).

From Dali we caught a bus straight to Shuang-Lang, 10RMB, about an hour, that circles the North side of the lake (you can catch it on the road outside the East gate, if you know what to look for). Shuang-Lang itself is a small, tight and narrow fishermen village, on the shore, under the mountain side. it has great views of Er-Hai lake (Ear-Shaped lake), and the guesthouse (read more) exploits it very well. to spend our afternoon we walked to the next village to the South through fields and the shore-line. Shuang-Lang has no restaurants, so we dined with the guesthouse staff. it was, surprisingly, a great authentic Chinese dinner, with all sorts of dishes, great (15RMB).

Next morning we packed our things and started walking along the lake to the North, enjoying the first opportunty to jump into the water. we just kept going through fields and villages, the lake on our left until we reached Sha-Ping’s road junction where we caught a bus to Jiangchuan (18RMB, 1.5 hours), from there we caught a bus to Shaxi (30 minutes, 8RMB) and arrived at around 8PM. the next day we walked around Shaxi, which has nice cobbled streets, and a nice bridge over the river. the town itself is rather nice and laid back. one very surprising thing happened to us at night we were walking around and wound up into am unbelivably big crowd of school pupils, way more than Shaxi can really contain. a mystery indeed.

The next day was a Friday, so we went to see the local market (in Shaxi, every Friday), which draws people, animals and merchandise from all sorrounding villages. after that we packed up and started walking (using a Soviet 1970’s map) towards Er-Yuan. the Shaxi area is a wide valley sorrounded by beautiful mountains, with endless hiking and treking opportunities. we chose to cross the ridge over to the East valley, from which we planned to catch a bus back to Dali.

The trek took 3 days (2 nights in the tent), including 2 meals we were invited to by friendly Chinese villagers living in the mountains. the second meal started, as always, with an invitation to see the guy’s house. soon we were faced with a big meal, a group of 10 kids, a group-photo session and warm invitations to stay for the night (12:00AM). on the way down from that tiny farm we were accompanied by a host of kids, going to school (?).

Missing the last bus from Er-Yuan to Dali, we spent the night in the terraces over the old part of the city. to celebrate the end of our short trek we made ourselves an omlet, and ate some Oreos with peanut butter! the next morning we sat on the terrace, drank hot coco and celebrated one of the best mornings of the trip.

 Since my camera was stolen about 2 weeks ago, all pictures in this post are taken by Dor Hajbi, the guy I’m traveling with.

Tags: blogsherpa, China, Yunnan