National Day Yunnan Travel Notes

Boarded the train after 11 PM last night. Stood for two hours before finding an empty seat. Kept dozing off but kept getting woken up by the cold—shouldn’t have only worn a T-shirt.

Played on my phone the whole way, checking the route. Phone was about to die. After getting off, used Baidu Maps to find an internet café near the train station. Immediately went in, showed my ID, got a card, charged my phone, and waited for both the charge and daylight.

Couldn’t stop thinking of that line from On the Road: “I’m always on the road.”

Planning to buy a backpack and wander around Kunming’s busiest area to see how it compares to the Land of Abundance. Yesterday at Jinlang I saw a pair of New Balance shoes I really liked, but hesitated because I thought they were Japanese goods (PS: later realized I was wrong—not Japanese, so safe to buy).

On the first day I wandered around the city center. It’s similar to Chunxi Road in Chengdu, but seems a bit bigger. Also spotted a ZARA that we don’t have in Chengdu. Went looking for a New Balance backpack, checked every store big and small, only found one New Balance shop and they didn’t have backpacks. Maybe I just won’t feel like buying one later.

At noon on the 2nd I went to Haigeng Park. As someone who’s grown up in Sichuan, seeing that endless stretch of water and rolling waves was genuinely shocking. I decided that soon I’d see an even bigger, wider body of water. You know its name: the sea.

After Haigeng Park we went to Xishan Park. There’s a cable car—40 yuan per person. A broke student and hiking enthusiast naturally wasn’t going to take it.

I assumed Xishan would charge an entrance fee—the itinerary said so—but somehow we ended up taking a small trail up the mountain. This path is probably the one locals use for their daily hikes—very low-key.

Xishan Park sits at 2600m (according to the guidebook). Dianchi Lake is around 1890m (I measured it myself). We spent over three hours exploring. From Xishan you can look down over the entire Kunming city area. It reminded me of how from Yangmingshan in Taiwan you can also overlook Taipei. I don’t know how many big cities Chengdu has, but Chengdu is round. Kunming isn’t.

Took a back-view photo by the cliff at Xishan, the same angle my Baidu friend Yue Xiaobei uses. That angle is really good—far away and thrilling. After coming down from Xishan my phone died, so no GPS. No idea how far the road ahead was. Ended up walking aimlessly for over an hour. Then took the A1 bus back to the city. Fell asleep on the bus.

Only after getting back to the city did I look for a hotel. Earlier I’d only found a guesthouse. Didn’t go in—sounded sketchy, and I was worried about running into the kind of situation Andy Lau had in A Moment of Romance. Decided to find a proper HOTEL. Eventually found Home Inn—170 yuan for the night.

This morning after waking up I went straight to the train station to buy tonight’s ticket. Recently all standing tickets to Dali in the evening have sold out. We hesitated. I looked at Xishuangbanna—over 200 yuan by bus. Speechless. In the end we decided to buy tickets for tomorrow to Dali. Then Zhang Shaoxia suddenly told me to buy for Lijiang instead. I said the ancient city entrance fee alone is 80, and it’s only 15 yuan from Dali to Lijiang. Still ended up buying for Dali.

In the afternoon we wandered around Southwest Forestry University. The neighboring Kunming University of Science and Technology looked too old; didn’t feel like going in. Took the bus to Yuantong Road, visited Yunnan University and the adjacent Cuihu Park.

That evening found a “Zhiqing Guesthouse” near the train station—80 yuan. Definitely not the same class as Home Inn. Proof once again that you get what you pay for.

Internet time’s almost up, so I’ll stop here. Day 3 itinerary ends.

On the morning of the 4th we rushed to the train station for the train to Dali. Arrived in Dali at 2 PM, grabbed some food, then took the 8 bus to the ancient city.

The ancient city was packed with tourists—completely expected during National Day. You can rent a bike here and cycle around the old town. Yangren Street and whatever other street are the liveliest, with the most silver jewelry sellers, though I doubt the purity.

Also selling tie-dye and the “Eighteen Oddities of Yunnan”—milk-made whatever. Didn’t taste good. The people drinking in bars seemed to all be foreigners. Chinese people were all in roadside teahouses. I also saw those two foreign couples selling stuff here that I’d read about before—their Chinese is actually pretty good.

Hotels during Golden Week are expensive. Even the crappy ones are fully booked. Starting to miss the Home Inn in Kunming already.

Spent the night in the ancient city.

At 8 AM we headed to Chongsheng Temple and the Three Pagodas. Chongsheng Temple is the Tianlong Temple Jin Yong wrote about in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, where Duan Yu learned the Six Meridians Divine Sword. We used student IDs. I was worried the ticket lady would check the photos carefully, but luckily she didn’t. Half price—62 yuan. Our itinerary only allowed two hours at Chongsheng Temple. We ended up staying two and a half.

Coming out of the temple we caught the bus back to the city. Then took a taxi to Erhai Park. Still that endless water, though I think it’s more interesting than Dianchi. Even went and touched the water of Erhai—never got to touch Dianchi’s.

At 11:30 we arrived at Dali train station and boarded the train to Guangtong.