An east-west street in the old town that became, in the 1990s, the centre of the backpacker scene that gave Dali its reputation as 'the second Kathmandu'. Most of the original foreign-run cafes have closed, and the street now serves mostly Chinese domestic tourists with souvenir shops, ice cream, and snack stalls.
Worth a walk through for context, but expect tourist-strip energy rather than alternative-traveller calm. The more interesting cafes and bars in Dali have moved to Renmin Lu and the smaller side lanes off Boai Lu.
A story
Yangren Jie — officially Huguo Lu — opened to foreign backpackers in the early 1990s when Yunnan reopened to independent travel. For about a decade it was one of the most distinctive backpacker scenes in Asia: Bai courtyard houses converted into cafes serving banana pancakes and chocolate cake, dreadlocked travellers playing chess with local Bai grandmothers, banana-leaf hammocks strung up between the eaves. The original Cafe de Jack was the iconic spot. The street has been thoroughly absorbed into Chinese domestic tourism since the late 2000s — most of the original cafes have closed or moved — but it retains a faint trace of its older character.