After the excessive tourism in Dali, I was ready for break to the countryside. The hostel owner in Dali recommended the town of Shaxi, a couple hour’s drive northwest of Dali. It is an ancient town on the old Tea-Horse trade route through Yunnan, Sichuan, and Tibet. It is a quaint village, with the scenic area almost entirely pedestrianized. I stayed at a hostel called 46 Horse Pen which turned out to be right on the square by the temple. There’s not much to the town, just some small cafes and shops, but they have a much more local feel than the places in Dali.
Most visitors go to the Shibao Shan Temple outside of town, but as I only had one day to visit, I was more interested in a hike. My hostel had a guidebook which suggested a hike called Three Hidden Lakes. It sounded great to me, so I set out at once. Perhaps I should have asked how good the hike was, because it turned out to be fairly strenuous yet disappointing. It was pretty much entirely uphill for 2 hours in the hot sun on an overgrown and difficult to follow trail. There were some nice views of the valley below, but the lakes themselves were rather disappointing, not very clear and without much surrounding vegetation. It was still nice to get out and see the farms along the way, but probably not worth the effort.
I left for Lijiang the next day, arriving in early evening. Lijiang is certainly a tourist town, no mistake. It has a beautiful view of the snow-covered mountains, particularly from the Black Dragon Pool Park, but that’s about as much good as can be said for it. The old town is thronged with tourists and cluttered with shops. Everything is overpriced, including food, and there’s an 80 yuan entrance fee just to go into the old town area.
It’s worth walking around the town if you’re passing through on the way to Tiger Leaping Gorge or Shangri-la, but I wouldn’t plan to spend much time there unless you want to see some of the villages outside of the city.
