Dali - a city where heaven and earth meet

China is a vast, multifaceted and mysterious country with three and a half thousand years of history confirmed by written sources. The Celestial Empire has given humanity many inventions and benefits, among which the best Chinese tea in the world occupies a prominent place. Currently, the PRC produces a huge variety of its varieties for every taste and budget. Today you can buy tea of different types - puer, green, black, red, yellow, blue, white, turquoise (oolong).

One of the leading tea-producing provinces is mountainous Yunnan, located in the southwest of the country, in the tropical and subtropical zones. Some of the finest teas in China are grown here.

Welcome to the hospitable capital of the Bai people!

In Yunnan there is the ancient city of Dali, which attracts tourists from all over the world with its historical sites, ancient buildings, temples and statues. Dali has many famous Buddhist monuments and buildings. This city is surrounded by mountains on all sides, and in certain weather conditions, clouds touch their peaks. Therefore, we had an incredible feeling that it is here that the sky connects with the earth. Nearby are also the picturesque Cangshan Mountains with numerous rivers, waterfalls and Buddhist temples and Lake Erhai, located at an altitude of two kilometers above sea level. A cable car leads to the mountains.

Today, Dali is home to over 650,000 residents, mostly of the southern Chinese Bai ethnic group. You can get here by bus, an exotic double-decker train, and through the airport, which serves local flights. The city's historic district is square in shape and surrounded by ancient walls, which include majestic Northern and Southern gates. Cars are not allowed in or modern buildings are allowed here. The historic district of Dali is divided into two parts. The oldest of them is the Old City, which was the capital of the Bai kingdom of Nanzhao in the 8th-9th centuries and the center of the next state of this ethnic group, the Dali Kingdom (10th-13th centuries), which was subsequently conquered by the Mongols who came from the north. The famous Chongsheng Pagoda is located here. The New City (Xiaguan), although called so, is also ancient, as it was built in the 14th century after liberation from Mongol rule in the early years of the Ming dynasty of emperors of the united China.

Outside the city is the majestic ensemble of the Three Pagodas. This Buddhist temple complex was erected by order of the rulers of the powerful kingdom of Nanzhao. Built in the 9th century, the middle pagoda, named Qianxun, is almost seventy meters high and consists of sixteen tiers. The thickness of the walls at its bottom exceeds 3 m. Two other pagodas, nine-tiered, 42 m high, were erected a century after the first. All of them are located in the corners of a regular triangle and are decorated with statues of Buddha made of white marble. In 1925, the city of Dali suffered from a strong earthquake, which took the lives of more than five thousand people. Then almost all the buildings were destroyed, but the complex of the Three Pagodas survived.

The state of Nanzhao, founded by the Bai people, prospered and flourished as a hub of trade between China and India. Buddhism, which came from Southeast Asia, spread to the rest of China through the city of Dali. The Bai people have an original cuisine, dishes of which can be tasted in this city. Its inhabitants are very fond of flowers, an annual flower festival is held in Dali, attracting many tourists. The houses of the Bai people are surrounded by gardens and decorated with many decorative elements, bright paintings, handmade fabrics, skillfully carved wooden objects, marble products and flowers.

Dali, due to the abundance of ancient buildings here, was the location for the filming of the TV series "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils". The city has a very lively "Foreigners' Street", popular with Chinese and foreign guests, where there are many bars, cafes and Western-style restaurants where you can try traditional food and drinks of the Bai people (among which stand out cheese cakes, fried scorpions, fish and quail egg dishes, yak milk yogurt, medicinal tinctures from exotic plants and mushrooms). Here you can also buy products from local craftsmen. Dali has many tea shops where visitors to the city taste its best varieties, and above all - exquisite pu-erh.