A trip to Yunnan, China.

[Bamboo Grove]

I had my first winter vacation while working in Macau in the late December of 2023 and decided to go to Yunnan. During my first trip to China in the spring of 1986 I had a plan to visit Kunming but in those days, it was so difficult and slow to purchase train tickets that I had to abandon the plan. Now almost 38 years later I finally made my way there and even deeper to Yunnan. I didn’t see much of Kunming but I saw something else that I really liked. Here’s the story. With some other background.

Guangzhou

I studied in Guangzhou in late 1987 for about 5 months so it was very interesting to go back there. This time I only stayed there for one night on my way to Yunnan and I had previously stayed there for one night as well as I went to meet my old friend from Finland who was on business trip there.

The first night I splashed out some money to stay in a 5 star China hotel. When I studied there, this was one of the top hotels in the city and in those days, I had decided that one time in the future I will spend a night there. It cost around 100€ for which money I wouldn’t be able to get a 4 star hotel in Finland.

Didn’t have much time to do anything before seeing my friend as Saturday happened to be a working day and I could only leave Macau in the evening. I reached the hotel at around 6 and met my friend at around 7.30 and then we took a taxi to the Pearl river to have dinner there. After the dinner we had a walk along the river and then returned to the hotel.

My room in China hotel

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Pearl river and Shamian

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The next day I went to have a walk around the Shamian island where I had spent a many good evenings during my study time, mostly on Saturdays as the university was so far away from this area and no metro in those days. This area hadn’t changed much, which is not the case with the rest of the city. I also took some photos as I had promised to do so to an ex-student of mine, who had been adapted from China when she was two. The adoption had taken place here and she had visited the place once after that and had some memories from the last visit. There were lots of statues on the island. These hadn't been there in the 80's. Also I saw one roasted chestnut seller, these were very common in Guangzhou in the old days.

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[pharvey]

Nice one BG

I never really enjoyed my time visiting Guangzhou, but that said it was always work and not geared to having a good time - unless into the "Girly Bars" and "Expat Bars" of course...

Never got to see Shamian Island on my travels, but from your photo's really looks like I've missed out - and hell, have you "Airbrushed" the crowds out?!!

More to come I hope!!

[Bamboo Grove]

More to come, sure. Shamian was never crowded, the Guangzhou metro is crowded all the time but I'm not going to talk much about that.

[Bamboo Grove]

Part 2 Guangzhou 2

On my way to Yunnan, I arrived earlier to Guangzhou than the previous time I was talking about. This was in the afternoon and so I had time to visit couple of more places. The first one was Chen Family Academy. I had visited this the first time during my university time in Guangzhou with a teacher and group of other students. I also remember taking some friends there later on. It had been very impressive and still was with all kinds of carving arts around the buildings.

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A short visit to the Cultural Park and in that neighbourhood they also had some buildings that reminded me of the Guangzhou in late 80’s. I also had a look at the Qingping market, which used to sell all kinds of animals. It was totally different know, maybe after covid, they have cleaned these wet markets. In the old days, they would sell dogs, cats, snakes etc. For people to eat.

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[buksida]

Looks impressive, all very clean and orderly, and without the crowds I would expect. Keep 'em coming!

[pharvey]

Looks impressive, all very clean and orderly, and without the crowds I would expect.

Absolutely - my experiences of China don't really compare unfortunately!!

Very interesting though BG - I'm certainly enjoying seeing the pics/reports.

[Bamboo Grove]

Kunming

I woke up to a cold morning, it was around +5 in Guangzhou had some breakfast and left the hotel. Getting to Guangzhou’s airport took quite a long time from the downtown area. It’s the same, when you come from the south to the Guangzhou South railway station, everything is far away. So I left my hotel early and arrived at the airport well in advance. At the airport everything went quickly and smoothly.

I arrived at Kunming around 15.30 and after walking through a long corridor at the airport, I found the metro quite easily. It was nice and not as crowded as the Guangzhou’s metro the night before and in the morning on the way to the airport. I needed to change the lines and also that was quite quick. Not like in Guangzhou or particularly in Shanghai, where you sometimes have to walk a long way when you transit from one line to another.

The problems started when I got off the metro. In my map, the hotel seemed to be only a short distance away from the metro station but I made a mistake and started going around the athletics park where it was located, instead of going through it. I finally arrived at the area, where the hotel was but still had to search for it for a while. When I finally found it, it didn’t look great and when I got in, they said, they can’t have foreigners in this hotel. So I quickly booked another hotel, which was near the railway station where my train to Dali would leave the next morning. I walked back to the metro station, this time through the park and when I got near it, I decided to take a taxi.

It proved to be a good decision although I only understood this better when I came back to Kunming on my way back to Macau. Anyway, it was a long ride because there were quite bad trafic jams but it cost me only about 8€.

The room was nice and on 30th floor with a nice view over the city. It was getting late so I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Just had a meal nearby and bought some refreshments from a supermarket in the same area. The hotel room was spacious and cost about 30€

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[wenshidi]

Where did you study in '87?

How did you find that hotel in Kunming?

[Bamboo Grove]

I studied in Jinan university in Guangzhou. The hotel was booked by using the Trip com web page. Also my flights and train tickets were booked by using Trip.

[Bamboo Grove]

Dali

Day 1

I left Kunming at around 11.00 for the two hour trip to Dali by train. Lots of tunnels there as we we entering a mountainous area.


I took a bus from the railway station to the Ancient City area. This took about 40 minutes and cost RMB 3 (THB 15). I got off on the eastern side of the area and my Chinese style B&B place was on the western side. I had estimated that to walk through the city wouldn’t be too long. Again wrong estimate, it was quite a long walk and when I got to the area where my lodging was, I couldn’t find it.

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There were no street names and my app took me to the place where the B&B was supposed to be but there was another place. So I walked through the narrow streets trying to locate the right place. After more than an hour, I gave up and called the place. They told me to take a taxi there, which I then did. The taxi took me to the area where I had been, in front of the other hotel but neither did the taxi driver know, where my B&B was. So I asked him to call the place and soon a man emerged from maybe 20 meters away. So I had been very near but hadn’t seen the sign for the place.

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Dali was an independent kingdom from 937 to 1254, when the Mongol armies defeated it. There are still some remnants that can be seen from that era, like the Three Pagodas.

There is also a very interesting Ancient City, very commercial but I liked the buildings there. Without this commercialism, the place most likely wouldn’t exist any more. Lots of people walking the streets but I didn’t see many westerners there.

After resting a while, I went for a walk to the Ancient City. Altogether, I walked almost 16 km. that day.

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[buksida]

Nice, Dali definitely looks an interesting place to visit.

[STEVE G]

Yes, I like the look of it as well.
My partner wants to visit China so I'm taking note.

[Bamboo Grove]

Dali - day 2

I had booked a train from Dali to Kunming for 26th of December, today being Christmas Eve. There were not many trains and mine was supposed to leave after 3 p.m. and I then began to think, that I shall be arriving to Lijiang quite late and as I really didn’t need to spend another morning in Dali on that day, I thought, I’d try to get a bus ticket.

After another rather long walk, I came to the bus depo and was able to buy a ticket that would leave 10.20 for a 3-hour trip. Now, I had had quite enough of long walks and so I hailed a taxi to take me to the Three Pagodas that are the symbol of Dali. I was on the south side of the Ancient City and the pagodas were more than a km from the north side.

The area was quite nice and there was also a temple in the same compound so I spent a couple of hours there.

The main and oldest pagoda is said to have been built 823-840 CE by king Quan Fengyou (劝丰佑) of the Nanzhao kingdom. This was the precedent of Dali kingdom and some Thai historians have claimed that it would have been Thai kingdom. This has never been proved, instead the people who lived there were Bai and Yi -people. The Bais are still a major group in Dali.

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The biggest and the oldest pagoda

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The photo of the tree is taken from the temple and I tried to search its name with google. What I got is a trumpet tree. If anyone knows better, please let me know.

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Some souveniers in the temple, I guess from the times Dali was an independent kingdom.

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I took a bus back to my hotel and rested a while before going back to the Ancient City to have a bite to eat. Again, I actually walked quite a lot in the evening, although, I had thought, that I’d just make a short trip for food. At the end of the day, I had walked about 14 km.

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[pharvey]

The Pagodas do look quite something - especially the tilt of a couple or is this just an illusion (photographic or otherwise)?

As is the norm in China (but far less in Dali it looks like), countless places to purchase tourist or crass/fake items. From your photo's though BG, Dali would seem to be the complete and utter opposite from many other "Tourist Spots" in China - I'd give "The Horn Shop" a miss though I think!!

As for the "Trumpet Tree(?) Flowers" - I'll ask the LHG. I've no doubt she'll know the Chinese name, but how it translates.... Who knows.

[Bamboo Grove]

Dali day 3

On the third and final day in Dali I wanted to see the mountain behind the town. The entrance to the area was less than 2 km away from my B&B so I decided to walk there. There were actually three entrances with every one of them having a cable lift up the mountain. I decided to take the shortest one, mainly because it was the nearest. There were not many people around, this being the winter, although the Ancient City was quite crowded. The lift took about 30 minutes. On my way up, I noticed that there were graves on the hillside. I thought this was quite strange as there didn’t seem to be any paths up there. Most of the graves also looked like they hadn’t been visited for years but some seemed to have fresh flowers. Even if they were plastic flowers, they didn’t look very old so maybe there were some paths on the hillside.

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I took these photos from the cable lift and was quite worried should I drop my phone, so they are not clear but you get the idea.

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Up on the mountain side I walked only a short distance, the path would have been about 6,5 km to the next cable lift but the scenery was very much what you would have seen in Finland, i.e. pine forest, so I soon turned back and went down again.

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At the background there is Erhai lake, which is the second largest highland lake in China. Smaller streams from the Cang Mountains in the west and Yangbi River, to the south, are the lake's outlet and eventually the waters flow into the Lancang River, which is better known as the Mekong.

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I spent the afternoon resting in my room and in the evening just had a quick walk in the town and had my dinner there.

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