I arrived and found the hostel much easier this time. In only an evening I had already seen much of the old town, and ... without getting lost, yey! It's very diferent to Lijiang despite being so close. The streets in Dali are wide and long, compared to being  narrow and winding however the buildings are similar, with the curving rooftops and the carved wooden panels along the front of the streets. In Lijiang there was many little streams flowing alongside the paths, in Dali the streams flow down both sides of the street, and along the main streets the water has been directed to become a waterfall featured, which makes the place quite relaxing with the sound of water running past wherever you are. However the second day in Dali it rained, and rained, and rained, really heavy so that the waterfall was not only down the center alongside the path, but also flowed down the path.

With the constant rain it wasn't going to be a very full day, however I did make it down to the train station, and this time I was much more lucky with the tickets, getting a sleeper to Kunming and then another train straight away up to Emei Shan, so thats one less thing to worry about.

When I went out for dinner, the streets were dead, the bars and restaurants empty, with the rain the town seemed to have gone into hibernation. Whilst sitting under shelter I watched one lady sweeping water away from the step to her restaurant, I'm not sure what she though it would do, the flow of water was constant, but she seemed to be happy that she was doing something. 

Luckily the next day the weather brightened up long enough to head of to see the three pagodas and palace, but after I hung around to see the hostels dog give birth to 11 tiny puppies, so cute! A walk out the town took me to the pagodas which were very touristy, however the ticket also included entrance to the temple which slowly worked its way up the backing mountain. So many stairs to climb, which meant a lot of the Chinese tourists payed for a buggy to drive them from temple to temple, leaving the walkways clear with very few people, so by the time i made it to each temple building the tourists had moved on already. As I worked my way up different temple buildings and towers, the view changed from pagodas and high peaks to lake views and city landscapes to misty mountain sides and temple rooftops.