Coming to Dali, Don't Miss the Holiday Inn Resort Dali Erhai Lake, Experience a Different Ambiance
## Holiday Inn Resort Dali Erhai Lake: A Liquid Dream
At 6:07 in the morning, I was awakened by a blue reflection. The moment I drew back the curtains, the entire Erhai Lake suddenly poured into my room—not the standard blue from travel brochures that had been color-corrected in post-production, but a flowing spectrum between cobalt and peacock blue, still carrying traces of drowsiness. The most luxurious decoration of the Holiday Inn Resort Dali Erhai Lake is precisely this natural mirror spanning 250 square kilometers.
The hotel buildings resemble a cluster of white shells stranded along the eastern shore of Erhai Lake, stretching out naturally. The designers clearly mastered the art of "subtraction," abandoning the overly decorated Bai ethnic style common in Dali in favor of clean lines that create a dialogue with the lake. The lobby features an all-glass structure, giving visitors the illusion of stepping into an aquarium—except this time, humans become the exhibits on display while the swimming fish become the carefree spectators.
My room was located at the V-shaped end extending toward the water, a design that made it possible to be surrounded by water on three sides. Lying in bed, my vision was controlled by a gentle compulsion: the floor-to-ceiling window on the left framed the snow line of Cangshan Mountain's nineteen peaks, directly ahead were silver trails left by fishing boats, and the glass door on the right framed a field of sea lettuce flowers. This experience of being surrounded by water created a slight dizziness, as if I might drift away with the tide at any moment.
The hotel staff wore modified tie-dye uniforms, looking like moving waves from a distance. They possessed a special sense of space, always appearing at the edge of guests' vision exactly when needed, yet completing their service at a non-intrusive distance. One day when a sudden sun shower fell, just as I was debating whether to abandon my outdoor afternoon tea, a server appeared with an oil-paper umbrella hand-painted with an Erhai fisherwoman from the "Nanzhao Illustrated Records." This unobtrusive thoughtfulness added a human warmth to standardized service.
Most memorable was the hotel's infinity pool. Its connection with Erhai Lake was so ingenious that first-time swimmers experienced spatial disorientation—was I swimming in an artificial body of water or directly into the highland lake? Especially at sunset, when the LED lights at the bottom of the pool gradually illuminated while the fishing lights on Erhai Lake awakened simultaneously, the boundary between the two bodies of water completely dissolved. Once, diving to the bottom of the pool, I saw through the glass wall a school of silverfish curiously examining this land creature in a swimsuit, and in that moment I truly understood the essence of "mutual admiration without tiring."
The wooden platform extending from the dining area to the water's surface offers the best theater for observing Erhai Lake's dawn and dusk. In the morning, Erhai resembles a faintly glowing opal, while in the evening it transforms into whiskey infused with sunset. The chef is a genius obsessed with hybridizing Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau ingredients with Mediterranean cuisine. His "Erhai sushi" uses sea lettuce flowers instead of seaweed, wrapped around rushan cheese and matsutake mushrooms, with a dipping sauce of "Dali wasabi" fermented from plums. This geographical displacement of ingredients creates surprisingly delightful flavor collisions.
At night, the hotel presents another kind of magic. When moonlight turns Erhai Lake into flowing mercury, the building outline lights quietly extinguish, leaving only the pebble lights along the walkways, like a string of stars washed ashore by waves. I often sat in the swing chair on the waterfront platform, listening to the sound of lake water hitting the pilings—the rhythm sometimes as urgent as the bitter tea in the Bai people's Three-Course Tea ceremony, sometimes as lingering as the sweet tea. One night I even saw fluorescent algae flickering in the waves, as if the entire Erhai Lake was playing an old celluloid film.
On my departure day, which coincided with the lake-opening festival, hundreds of fishing boats formed a lotus formation on Erhai Lake. The front desk girl handed me a sachet embroidered with "Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon," filled with dried sea lettuce flowers and Cangshan pine needles. "With this, the scent of Erhai will never fade," she smiled. On the return flight, I could indeed smell the lake water lingering on my fingertips—perhaps the hotel's most clever design was quietly stitching a liquid dream into the warp and weft of urban life.
On sleepless nights in the concrete jungle, I still play that video of Erhai Lake on my phone. As the rhythm of the waves emanates from the speaker, my bedroom suddenly transforms into a floating water house. I now understand that true luxury was never about the weight of marble, but about allowing an entire highland lake to dwell permanently in the folds of memory.