Located 30km away from Dali Old City, Shaping is famous for their weekly morning market. It’s on every Monday from 9am to 2pm. Just take a bus go north from Dali (10 CNY one way), and you’ll see many little villages around Erhai Lake. Shaping is one of the small villages.
Dali is a worthwhile destination, but don’t forget to go out from the city center. There are small villages with old architectures just about one hour range. Easy to get there by bus or bike.
In the market, you’ll see many hill tribe people with their own traditional clothe and the basket. Oh the basket, I want one as my backpack! It’s so smartly designed. It distributes the weight. Also, it’s convenient for bus travel because the basket has legs, so you can just put your bag down in the middle of the bus. And it’s quite cute too. If I’m traveling in a short period, I would buy one but I cannot keep it. What a shame.
Enough about the basket…
It was an interesting market. And yes, there’s absolutely nothing to buy because we’re not farmers. But we bought some local fruits: apples, pears, and pineapples with a good price. One pineapple for 2 CNY (0.30 USD), what a deal!
Here are some photos from Shaping Monday market.
