Give the old town one night, then move to a village on the lake

Dali old town is sociable and easy and has a backpacker layer over the Bai one. It is a fine first night and a poor week.

Move out to Xizhou, with its merchant mansions and morning market, or to the east shore around Shuanglang, where the guesthouses look back at the mountains across the water. Both are on the bus route round the lake, and both are where people who meant to stay two days end up staying two weeks.