The most exhausting bike ride around Dali!

Hi friends,
I’m currently blogging in bed and fighting exhaustion to get this post out. So appreciate, people!
Today, Daisy and I ambitiously tried to bike around the Erhai Lake. Dali is famous for having Chan Shan (蒼山) on one side, and Erhai Lake (洱海) on the other. We are exploring Cang Shan tomorrow, but today we certainly saw lots of Erhai Lake! We also met an American guy from our hostel who decided to join us, and helped us with tips on riding bikes! I haven’t ridden a bike in probably two years! And, apparently Yunnan is a very small world, as he actually knows the two north American girls I just met at XTBG garden!
Erhai Lake is about 42km from one end to the other. I’ve included a map of our route today! We rented our bikes from our hostel for 25rmb a day. Then we proceeded to bike from the Dali Old Town (marked by red writing) up to Xizhou (喜洲), a local town.


Well, as you can imagine, we are EXHAUSTED! Our route turned out to be about 40km today! I don’t think I’ve ever travelled 40km on a bike ever! Both Daisy and I have very, very sore butts!
Here I am at the beginning of the trip, with my bike! We had no idea how tired we were going to be at the end of the day!

Here is John (American guy) and Daisy riding behind me. We cycled through some amazing rice fields and farmlands. We were also lucky with our weather! It was beautiful and sunny today!

We finally got to Xizhou around 1pm. The morning wasn’t so bad, biking 25km was alright. We were still very energetic!
Here I am at lunch time! We shared some dumplings and some local foods!

And from the town of Xizhou, we cycled closer to the Erhai Lake! We found a nice spot where they were no other tourists, just locals going about fishing!
Look I’m in Erhai Lake!

Here is much better photo of Erhai Lake, and you don’t have me blocking your view 😛

We biked through some gorgeous farmlands, and these lovely white birds flying through! So picturesque! Cang Shan is in the background!

haha so at this point, we were exhausted! We left Xizhou around 3pm. I’ve had like 5 bottles of ice water and so exhausted! We biked for about 30 minutes, and Daisy and I just gave up! We somehow flagged down a bus and convinced them to take our bikes with us and rested for a while! The whole bus were full of local people who saw us silly girls who attempted to bike! They were all very nice and it was very friendly bus! This bus ride was marked on the above map with yellow!
Well after this rest, we got ambitious again! We asked the bus to drop us off at the three pagodas (the symbol of Dali)! They kind of laughed incredously at us, as if to say: “you’re STILL going to continue biking?”
Well, they dropped us off at the side of the road to the pagodas. We still had to ride the 1km up to the pagodas! This was very tough, as it was uphill. We stopped several times!
This picture below was taken during one of our breaks! The pagodas were so close, but SO far at the same time!

We finally biked/walked/crawled and somehow made our way to the bottom of the pagodas! As soon as I got off my bike I sat down in the shade and honestly didn’t move for 20 minutes!

I think my exact quote at this moment was: “I’m never getting up! I don’t need to go back to the hostel, I don’t need to go back to Canada, I just want to sit here!”
At this point, we have been cycling all day in the sun, we were dehydrated (even after 5 bottles of water), our butts were so sore, and our legs felt like jelly. It was also about 6pm and we know we have to make it back into town!
We eventually picked ourselves up and started to appreciate the pagodas that we worked so hard to get to!
Here is the square/plaza right in front of the pagodas! It was beautiful in the sunlight!

And lastly, those pagodas that took so much effort to get to!

Anyways, its just after 11pm local time and Daisy has been asleep for like 30 minutes. I am exhausted and can barely keep my eyelids open to finish this post!
I hope you enjoy the photos! 40km on a bike around Erhai Lake in Dali…Check!
Goodnight,
Jess

This entry was posted in China, Dali, travel, Yunnan. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to The most exhausting bike ride around Dali!

  1. Iris says:

    much appreciated!!!!
    you girls are crazy. CRAZYYYYYYYYY. I would definitely have fainted probably halfway …
    the scenery @ the pagodas is really quite amazing though, well worth the exhaustion!
    sooo cheap to rent those bikes compared to here!

    jealous of your adventures while I am indoors studying (and not doing a very good job at it either…)

    put on more sunscreen so you don’t get sunburnt!!

  2. Matt Krems says:

    Thanks for the post! I am in Dali now and plan to go a similar route. Was it mostly uphill from Dali Old City to Xizhou? I am planning to bike to the Shaping market tomorrow which is a bit past Xizhou.

    • Jessica says:

      Hi Matt,
      no, the route from Dali old city to Xizhou is very flat and really should not have been so hard. Lots of people do bike all the way to Shaping market. we never made it that far! The particular day we went in July, the sun was just so hot and bright and all of us got sunburned doing the bike ride.
      Good luck and enjoy Dali! I’m not back in Canada, wishing I can go back!

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