walked a narrow lane surrounded by old wooden houses covered with tiles of the Old City of Dali. I was not here long, but once I lived here for some time. Coming by bus from Kunming watched how the landscape has changed along the way, as the city grew Xiaguan, through which he passes on the road, as there are new buildings to replace the old and the place of the old road has taken a modern highway.
also appeared and gave a lot of new buildings and many old disappeared. With them gone forever part of the unique atmosphere of ancient times hovering over Dali. The new, brick, cleanly plastered on the snow-white color houses, in concept architects make had a style of traditional Chinese architecture. Unfortunately, the project was not entirely successful - quarters of the new building proved to be quite monotonous estates kitschy terraced houses, not old Údolní imitate architecture. Well - a combination of tradition and modernity is not always an easy task.
already dusk fell and tiny shops and the restaurants on both sides of climbing up the gentle slope, large flat stones cobbled streets slowly began to catch fire to light. I looked at the top of the ridge were Cang, behind which the sun had set, and chests over which the night now dawn, and soon, one after the other, were to start light up the stars. Dali lies in the shadow of the mountains - between it and Lake Er, occupying the bottom of the valley, which is part of the great tectonic fracture, running somewhere in the west of the Tibetan plateau. Dali is so troubled area of \u200b\u200bstrong seismic shocks, which gave its ugly head often in the history of this ancient city, once capital of the Kingdom Nanzhao.
gently sloping mountainside begins to rise behind the flat, marshy lands belt stretching along the lake shore. Here is scattered fishing villages, thanks to a very rich and fertile gruntom dostatkowi fish in the waters of the lake. Slightly above the new highway runs, leading in a north-westerly direction, where the mountains are becoming higher and wilder, and finally across the borders of Tibet. Above the edge of the road starts to climb - and here begins the Old Town. From the top restricts it tries road, which from time immemorial, tending west to the much higher than the Dali city located in Lijiang, a former state capital of the Naxi people and then to Tibet. Slope above the old road climbs up the increasingly stromiej. The earth here is rocky and infertile, forcing people to make a living what is in abundance. Residents foothill villages are engaged in masonry so (because the stone, next to the wood, there was always the primary building material), and probably also in part, and poaching, as just above the villages slope becomes very steep and there begins already the forest, where only here and there were built small temples and monasteries.
Formerly the peasants from the upper villages with the advent of spring, walked up mountains in search of the relevant pieces of rock. Separating them from the ground, machined, and then laboriously, meter by meter, transported down where they could finally sell the garages stone, which then could be subjected to further processing. Usually leave their homes as soon as the sun began to spring snow melt on the tops of the mountains, and returned in late autumn. And so, Year after year, their lives elapsed.
Slightly less than half of the top drags on the oldest trail, which was once the ancient caravan of pack horses zdążały with Dali and located further to the east areas of the west towards Tibet - Jade Banner. Above the mountains are now uninhabited, there is no longer even monasteries. Here ends the world of merchants and farmers - Baiae of Dali, and the world begins highlanders - the other, poorer nations, especially Yi. The world of hunters and shepherds. That is the charm of Yunnan - The diversity of languages, dress, and customs.
***
as I walk down the street of the old Dali, watching the sunset slowly turns into night, with extensive behind panorama of the lake, and before us towering mountain range over which the stars have shone, I am suddenly aware of the exterior changes. While the old houses disappear, and the place of the crooked streets of hundreds of years it will take a smooth asphalt, after which the flit will be a modern car, the mountains and the lake will remain - unchanged and unmoved. So, as always, will look on in silence, as in the valley, people are born and die, and how to build their homes a storm - ever changing, over the centuries, but in fact, how similar to each other. Once there, these people will say maybe another language than the one that resonates here today, they might dress differently, or something else will be considered as worthy of praise, something else embarrassing. But will it really be different?
blackened roof tiles of old houses hide behind towering in the distance at the foot of Three Pagodas, which can be seen as one of the most emblematic symbols of Dali. They were built long ago. It is believed that the oldest and highest of them, reaching almost 70 meters, was built in the years 824 - 859 AD. Since that time, often haunted by Dali earthquake - but pagodas are still intact. Small and weak, like needles compared to the vastness of the mountains, but very old in Compared with everything else that followed was built in Dali!
splash of water in the dark. It streams flowing down from the mountains on its way toward the lake facing the Old Town. Here are included in a stone trough and murmur along the narrow, old streets, adding charm to Dali. Once there were many more streams, each of which entailed a lot of water. Today, some dried up, and those that remain - are shrinking year by year.
