From Kunming, my group headed west to the old town of Dali, about five hours' drive, or just over 150 miles, west of the capital (and yes, that's by highway. I-5 it is not). Dali was the center of two different kingdoms (in succession, not as in Jerusalem) between the 8th and 13th centuries, until it was overrun by the Mongols. The city's main tourist attraction are the three pagodas shown below.
They form an isoceles triangle, with the front pagoda, at about 200 feet, the tallest as well as oldest, having been built in the early part of the 9th century; the other two followed sometime over the next hundred years.
They've been touched up here and there over the centuries, but are essentially the same structures they've been since their original construction. The same can't be said for the Buddhist temple that stands on the same grounds, which was destroyed during the Qing dynasty and only rebuilt in the last decade (below). In fact, there are few things in China that have managed to survive more than ten centuries of natural disasters, warfare, and the Cultural Revolution, so the Bai are justly proud of the pagodas' longevity, as it was local builders who were responsible for their construction.
The pagodas have been through enough over the years to make them less than completely stable these days -- one in particular has a noticeable tilt to it, and it's claimed that after one large earthquake, one of them actually split visibly, only to resettle back in place. At any rate, tourists are no longer allowed to go up them, but the view must be incredible -- those are the Cangshan Mountains at the back, whose streams run down into the town, and on the opposite side sits Erhai Lake, the seventh-biggest freshwater lake in China, according to my Lonely Planet.
Buddha, sitting in his reconstructed temple above the pagodas, has some good scenery.
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