Dali E-Bike Day Tour: 58 km Along Erhai Lake's Wilder East Shore

The ride starts at Xingsheng Bridge in Xiaguan, a white multi-arched bridge with ornamental towers, at the point where the Xi'er River leaves Erhai. It is the lake's only natural outlet. From here the water runs west and eventually joins the Mekong on its way to Southeast Asia. Xiaguan is Dali's modern city of offices and apartment blocks, with none of the Old Town's courtyards. It is famous, though, for its wind. The first line of the old Dali saying "wind of Xiaguan, flowers of Shangguan, snow of Cangshan, moon of Erhai" is about this end of the lake.

Take a couple of minutes on the bank to check your saddle height and helmet, and to get a first photo with the bridge behind you. Then the city thins out and Erhai begins to open up on your left as you head up the east shore. Your guide leads the way out through the city streets, and the lake views start soon after, once the buildings thin out along the shore.

Once Xiaguan is behind you, the east-shore viewpoint is where you first see the whole lake at once. Erhai is about 40 km long and up to 9 km wide, sitting at roughly 1,970 m. Across the water the Cangshan range lines up along the entire western shore. It has nineteen peaks, the highest of them, Malong, at 4,122 m. Dali Old Town and the villages of the west shore sit at their foot. The shallows in front of you are dotted with drowned trees and wading birds.

This side of the lake feels very different from the west. The hills are drier and rockier, and the road is cut into the slope rather than running across flat farmland, so from here on you ride above the water instead of beside it. In the morning the sun is behind you and lights up the mountains across the lake, which is why this viewpoint photographs best early in the day. The views are clearest in the dry season, from about November to April. In the summer rains, the peaks are often wrapped in cloud.

Lixiangbang, which translates as "Dream Land", is a resort town built into the cliffs above the east-shore road in Haidong, looking across the water to Jinsuo Island and the Cangshan range. It was designed to look like Santorini, with whitewashed walls, blue trim and stairways winding down toward the lake. Greek newspapers have written about it as China's copy of their island. Whatever you make of the idea, the setting is real. The houses stack up the hillside, and every gap between them frames the lake.

It's mostly holiday homes, cafés and wedding photographers, so treat it as a short stop for photos and a stretch rather than a place to explore for hours. Built into a cliff, it is a place for walking rather than riding, so plan to explore it on foot. One landscaped section charges its own admission, but you don't need it to get the view. For the best shot, look down one of the streets that drop straight toward the water, with the lake at the bottom and the mountains across it.

Tianjing Pavilion stands on the tip of the Luoquan Peninsula, a rocky headland on the east shore with water on three sides. Its steep sides and wide views made it a defensive position in ancient times. The peninsula is named after Luoquan, a monk of the Nanzhao kingdom, which ruled from this lake basin more than a thousand years ago and was granted this cliff to build a temple on. The present pavilion is a four-storey, eight-sided tower. Around it stand a cluster of halls and a pagoda, all part of one scenic area.

A lift takes you up to the second-to-top floor, and from there it is a short climb to the top. It's the best elevated viewpoint on the whole east shore. Cangshan fills the far side of the lake, and you can follow the east-shore road you've just ridden along the water below. It's also a good place to get out of the sun and take a proper break before the final stretch north to Wenbi Village. Entry is part of the Luoquan Peninsula scenic area; ask your guide what is included on the day.

Wenbi is a small village on the lakeside slope in Haidong, on the east shore of Erhai. It began as a Bai fishing and quarrying village and was losing its people until artists and guesthouse owners started moving in. Today it has a few dozen guesthouses, cafés and photo studios, most of them looking straight across the water to Cangshan's nineteen peaks. The village road down to the lake has been painted in rainbow stripes, and that road is the reason most people come.

The stretch of east-shore road from Wase to Wenbi is often picked as the best cycling on the whole east side of the lake: about 13 km, quiet, with open views most of the way. That makes it a fitting last leg. At the village, ride or walk down the painted road to the waterline for the classic shot of the stripes running into the lake. The late-afternoon light is good here, because the sun drops toward Cangshan across the water. It's an easy place to end the day with a drink at one of the lakeside cafés before the shuttle back.