Visit Dayan, sleep in Shuhe or Baisha

Dayan, the famous old town, is beautiful at seven in the morning and a bar strip by nine at night. Shuhe, four kilometres away, and Baisha, further up the plain, have the same Naxi architecture, the same canals and a fraction of the noise.

Stay out there, walk into Dayan early with a coffee, and see it while the shutters are still closed and the water runs clear. Taxis between the three towns are cheap and constant, so nothing is far.