Life

Down Under in Dali

By Todd Balazovic
Updated: 2010-11-01 15:37

An Aussie with a chronic case of wanderlust finally hangs his hat at his own guesthouse in Yunnan province. Todd Balazovic checks in.

Standing challenge: Beat David Shaw at pool and he’ll give you a night’s lodging free. If he wins, you buy him a beer. [Photos by Todd Balazovic / China Daily]

David Shaw's decision to settle down and open a guesthouse was not quite the well-thoughtout strategy of most first-time business owners. In fact, Shaw says, at the time he was simply "stopping by" a scenic spot in Yunnan province. But Dali struck a chord for the Australian backpacker-turned-entrepreneur and, two years later, he is operating the Jade Emu and the Jade Roo, two of Dali's best-known foreign-owned guesthouses. "I was on my way to Lijiang, to consider settling there — but I never made it," he said.

"Dali's sunshine and scenery were too good to pass up." 

The 38-year-old began his 10-year trek that would eventually lead him to Dali in early 2000, after the tech bubble burst in Australia and left the network design engineer jobless.

With a nice-sized payout sitting in his bank account and no real job, Shaw took to the road, leaving Australia for Southeast Asia where he got his first taste of travel and his first look at Asian culture.

 

Four months later he received a phone call offering him his old job back.

"I took my old job back, but it wasn't the same. I had got the travel bug and was itching to get out," he said.

Shaw kept his wanderlust in check for two years, saving money but keeping his goal to explore more of Asia in the back of his mind. In 2003, he made the leap from telecommunications to travel, setting off for Thailand.

He spent more than four years backpacking throughout Southern Asia, visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. But he never crossed a border into China until late 2007, when working as a partner in a high-maintenance online travel company convinced Shaw he'd had enough.

"I was bored with Thailand at the time, so I pulled out a map and began looking. China was there and something kind of clicked," he said.

After traveling around China for more than four months, Shaw met his life-partner, Song, and, after years of moving around, he decided to settle down and engage in the one thing he knew the most about: guest houses.

Shaw and his life partner, Song, have created a little patch of Australia with their guesthouses, the Jade Roo and the Jade Emu. [Todd Balazovic / China Daily]

"I realized that most of my experiences for the past few years had been as a guest, so I thought, why not turn the tables," he said. The only question that remained was where. "I wanted to go back to Australia, but Song wanted to stay. We had both been to Lijiang and had enjoyed it, so we decided we would give it a shot," he said.

But while on their way to Lijiang, the couple decided to make a pit stop in Dali for a few days to soak in the spectacular views of Erhai Lake and Cang Mountain. Smitten, Shaw began looking for property to buy when he came across the half-built villagestyle building that would soon become the Jade Emu. "I called the real estate agent and within an hour I had placed a bid," he said.

It was not only Shaw's attraction to the scenery that got him rooted in Dali, but also the local community, which consists largely of the Bai ethnic group. He said he wanted to give his guests a unique experience, one that he would have liked to have if he was backpacking himself.

"Foreigners want to see real people living in real towns," he said "After seeing Dali, I felt as though Lijiang was a little too Disneyland."

Shaw has since left his mark on the community around Dali's old city, operating one of first foreign-owned guest house chains in the quickly growing tourist town.

"This job is still a bit like my days traveling, but now I don't have to move — people come to me," he said. "Now when I do travel, it's simply to catch up with family."