It's been many years since Dali Old Town became a fixture on the Yunnan backpacker trail. The Cangshan mountain range to the west and Erhai Lake to the east make the walled town a great hillside redoubt into which to retreat from days or weeks on the road.

And some road it was — little more than ten years ago, a bus ride from Kunming to Dali would have taken you as long as 12 uncomfortable and unreliable hours. There was no train.

The G56 highway's changed all that, but the old road remains, a beaten and pockmarked section of China's National Highway G320, a 3,695km-long streak of asphalt that runs from the coast in Shanghai to the Myanmar border in Ruili.

No motorist headed to Dali from Kunming would elect to drive this route, but for two-wheeled vehicles, which are not allowed on the G56 highway, it's all that's available. It's a squeak over 400km. We researched the route, set aside four days,