Kunming to Lijiang
We boarded train K9682, 3rd class, hard sleeper
A double-deck train full of sleeping beds. Funny yes, but very limited room for our backpacks and the stuff of our compartment bunkmates.
In Lijiang we took bus no. 8 – or at least we tried. The first two small buses arriving were immediately stormed by Chinese. Because we first wanted to take bus no. 4 we waited. As the third no. 8 arrived we decided to show the crowd our boarding abilities. The whole show was closely monitored by at least 7 police men. We managed to get on board and drove until White Dragon Square, where we changed to bus no. 2. It was good that we had shown the driver where we wanted to get off the bus, because the sign of the bus stop was vandalized. At the entrance to the Lijiang Old Town nobody collected the fee – lucky us 
Lijiang
Different than most of the other cities we saw in China. Lijiang is still horizontal, with no skyscrapers, streets with a lot of green and surrounded by lush green hills.
Timeless Hostel
The best 8-bunk-bed-room with big lockers so far on our journey. Big lockers and a very friendly and helpful receptionist.
Lijiang Old Town
We love the place! Not the main roads that fill in the afternoon with 1000s of Chinese tourists, but all the small side alleys and the original totally un-touristy market. Pareto was right: 80% of the tourists stay in 20% of the streets. Not to mention that the traffic has to stay out of the old town!
One of the nicest moments happened as we encountered a young just married couple from Wutai Shan. They were looking with there photographer for nice motives for their wedding pictures. We had nearly passed each other as we both turned. They immediately asked us if … .., “yes, sure we can make photos together!” We in short trousers with t-shirt and flip-flops and they in their wedding outfit. At least Tom wore his Chinese character t-shirt: 愛 = Love. We congratulated them to their wedding, wished them all the best and made a couple of photos together in different constellations. How sweet!
Tip
In the early evening grab a cold beer and sit outside on one of the bridges to see the crowds roll by.
Restaurants
88号小吃店 88 Naxi Snacks
88 Wuyi St. (at Xingren Upper Seg)
Nice lively place with authentic and tasty food. Not as touristy as many others in old town. You have to go to the back entrance to get a number for queuing. They have little plastic chairs in the open air waiting area and give you hot tea if the queue is long. We went there 3 times during our stay. Would 88 Naxi Snacks be in Munich it would become our regular meeting point with friends!
Tian Hé Canting
Tasty chicken with fruits, braised eggplant, … they also sell cheap but tasty corn-sausages to go at the street side of the restaurant.
Tiantian Xian
Watch out for “Daily Fresh” beneath the Chinese characters.
We had fried lotus root, pork with black mushrooms and fried egg with red and green pepper – yummy!
Noodle Restaurant
A tiny place with a small roof terrace and balcony, that serves spicy noodle dishes. We had dumplings in red oil sauce and cilli oil meat noodles. VERY spicy!!!
Momi Café
A wonderful variety of postcards, a nice interior, good coffee, mango smoothies and cheesecake plus a cat makes this place our favorite café in “old town”.
Tiger Leaping Gorge
We started our 2-day-trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge at 7:30 am. A bus – arranged by Tina’s Guesthouse – brought us to the entrance of the gorge: 65 RMB p/p. From there it went uphill. First a street, than a path. During the steep part men with mules waited – or better walked after – the few tourists that went on their way that morning, to earn some money. We tried to avoid the mules as good as we could as Claudia reacts allergic to horses. After the steep part they were gone and we had a wonderful panorama of the surrounding hills.
Remark
The path – red painted arrows lead the way – is even better to find by tons of empty plastic bottles.
Please #LeaveNoTraceBehind
Although we didn’t see the river all the time, the roaring could be clearly heard. After the steep beginning, the way was easy and the mountain scenery beautiful. 6 hours after we had started we arrived at “Halfway”.
Halfway Guesthouse
Beautiful view on the mountains and a variety of good Chinese food reasonable priced. A place where you could chill for a few days.
The next morning we woke up early and admired the beautiful view from our bed After a good noodle soup we were on our way to Tina’s Guesthouse. The way is not as beautiful as the day before. We passed a “waterfall” that looked and smelled different. The stones were covered with something white. We discovered that above that “waterfall” there was a sort of mining or construction company that dumped their substances into that draw.
Remark
There are only few places along the hiking route that look like untouched nature. The Chinese don’t even try to cover their supply pipes and cables.
The Tiger Leaping Stone
After arranging the bus back to Lijiang at Tina’s Guesthouse, we descended for 15 RMB (to be payed to the local people for preserving the way) into the gorge. The way down is steep and secured the old school Chinese way – meaning not reliable. After an hour we arrived at the “tiger jumping rock” the sign said. For 10 RMB extra we could have gone there but skipped it. 20 m left of that stone the roaring waters are still very impressive. We spend approx. 30 minutes there and than headed back. An hour later we arrived were we had started.
Tip
The story how the gorge got his name is better than the site. If you arrive early enough at Tina’s – do it. Should it rain or have rained the night before the way will be very slippery – personally we would skip it than.
“Please push the button to value our service.” or – The VISA Extension
The tool on the desk of the PSB (Public Security Bureau) officer showed: 2 green smileys & 4 red frowns – not our judgement! To be fair the service was quiet good. The officer spoke good English and gave us an address where to make the needed photos + jpg. Two days later our visa extension was ready. What we didn’t knew in advance was that we had to bring a registration from the local “old town” police. So we had to go back the first time, but we saw a police station from the inside. The friendly English speaking female officer had a long dark black pigtail, wore Addidas sneakers with pink stripes and had a golden iPhone 6 – they are just human
Tip
Take bus no. 8 from the old town. It drops you pretty near the PSB bureau and costs only 1 RMB.
Jetstar – not transparent
After receiving our extended visa we wanted to change our flight from Hong Kong out of China, that we had to provide for the first visa application. Extra we had booked a more expensive bundle with the option to change the date of our flight for free. We ended up with paying 722 HKD more – for what? The website does not explain that 
But that was not the only problem. In our absence from home our bank and Visa changed the “Verified by Visa” procedure, so that we could not finish the transaction. Luckily Claudia’s brother back home in Germany quickly could help us out – again! Thx Stefan!!!
Lijiang to Dali
From the express bus station to Dali new town in about 2 hrs. But than we made a small mistake. We got in bus no
Dali
Hostel Dragonfly
Spacious beds in the 6-bed-dorm, good showers, a roof top terrace with hammocks and last but not least a very nice, helpful staff.
On Fridays the hostel starts a pub crawl. The first one was “Sun Island”. A multinational band played, very good. After that we went to the secret “Backyard”. Nice outside bar with pool and table soccer plus good music and a scary looking but surprisingly nice big dog. We would have never found it ourselves! At around 2 am we called it a night
The old town seems a little bit like Lijiang.
We went to a supermarket. Suddenly a dance track started and the workers lined up in the market to make some sort of gymnastics. As the song was over everybody got back to work
Restaurants
Square Snack
Watch for the sign near the Korean restaurant on the main street (starting from the hospital into old town) that leads the way into a small alley at which end the restaurant is on the left hand side.
As authentic as it can be. We had to show them our dinner wishes in Chinese before they granted us a table next to a company celebration. The food was excellent and the company party “interesting”. A lot of drinking men – mainly Schnapps -, being very loud, smoking, falling off the chair and of course spilling beer over the legs of the young female coworker – felt very much like company parties at home in Munich
Moslem Street Stall
纟 代拉 面
Corner Renmin / main street
We had a tasty noodle soup with meat. The best part is, that they make your noodles freshly in front of you for every dish. Craftsmanship at its best!
The Good Panda
One of the more traditional, cheap and tasty options in the touristy part of town.
Duan’s Kitchen (near the east gate)
Fried Dali cheese (don’t think about your memory of cheese!), tofu soup, fried pork rolled in sticky rice – good food!
The Erhai lake
We rented a scooter and wanted to do a tour round the lake with an overnight stay in Waze.
Tip
To go round the lake you need a conventional scooter because the e-scooters don’t have that range (at the moment). Still it’s a cheap activity: 60 RMB per day for the e-scooter and 150 RMB for the motorbike. Petrol is very cheap as well!
We started clockwise on a sunny morning. Many Chinese with e-scooters were as well on their way, but it wasn’t crowded. We stopped at many places to make pictures – the scenery is very beautiful. At midday we stopped more or less accidentally at the “Tongue of the Lake”, a small peninsula. We had to park our scooter and walk. At the tip of the tongue we cooled ourselves in the water and Tom took some strokes with a Chinese family.
Tip
Be aware of the creepers in the water!
We proceeded after eating dumplings that we had bought in the morning.
Waze wasn’t the nice-overnight-stay with a view from a balcony watching the sundown that we had hoped for. Either the hotels were empty (and so we would have been the only guests) or left and right of the hotel was a construction site (busy even on a Sunday). So we proceeded further. We saw a modern looking hotel with nice balconies on a hill – they wanted 580 RMB for a night. Not quiet our budget In the end we drove all the way back to Dali and returned to Dragonfly Hostel.
Tip
If you want to stay at the lake consider the hotels near Dali at the lakeside starting clockwise on the West Erhai Ring Road. Some could be expensive though. A café at the lakefront wanted 62 RMB for a macchiato. (As we saw that, we instead chose the 翠田 café that has an old fashioned fisher boat in front of it with two seats, a table and an umbrella. The have fresh, organic food and more reasonable prices.)
After that long drive – mostly with much space and more or less alone on the road – the traffic in Dali new town was a little bit nerve-wracking.
Rice & Friends Chinese Cooking Class
We went with Luxi to the local market and bought some groceries before heading to the cooking classroom. On a rooftop we cooked three dishes. Fried tofu salad, braised eggplant, Gongbao Chicken. It was a very nice and relaxed atmosphere and because it was only the two of us we had the opportunity to chat with Luxi about this and that. At the end we invited her – should she ever come to Germany again – to visit us.
Dali – Kunming
We took the bus to Kunming. 3 hrs with constant beeping of the traffic warning system and a silly, cheap Kung Fu comedy.
Kunming
Cloudland Hostel
To me one of these hostels that are too big to be really nice. In the surrounding you don’t have much pleasant food options. Too sad, because the hostel could be nice.
In the evening we met a Belgian and a German traveling together since they met in the Trans-Mongolian Railway. Funny conversations till midnight
Kunming – Yuanyang Rice Terraces
With bus and subway to the Kunming south bus station. From there with a bus to Xinjie (an ugly transport hub) in around 7 hrs. It was incredible warm in the bus! From there by minivan in approx. 50 min. to Pugao Laozhai village.
Yuanyang Rice Terrraces / Pugao Laozhai village
Timeless Hostel
A nice hostel that lives from the hospitality of “Alice”, the host. The roof top terrace is nice and the kitchen makes good food. It is possible that you look out of the door and see pigs running around or water buffaloes trotting by and behind them someone with a pink umbrella, on it the NBA logo.
The village itself wasn’t exactly beautiful, but women still wear their traditional colorful cloths and animals like pigs, hens, ducks roamed freely.
Our first hike in the rice terraces was very nice although we got wet in between because a heavy shower got us. The views were beautiful. It was so quiet. Dragonflies buzzed by and butterflies showed their beauty. As we walked through the little villages nearly everybody was busy building something. Most of them were curious and helped us to find our way, some only looked shy at us.
In the evening we sat together with a Canadian couple and a guy from France. All travelled since some time now. We drank some beer and exchanged travel stories. Thank you guys for all the valuable tips!
The next morning it rained still and there was no electricity. The electricity came back but the rain didn’t stop. Because of the moisture it was very foggy We tried once to at least walk in the village, but it began to rain even harder and so we had to walk back, soaked from head to toe…
Retour to Kunming – the same way back that we came here 3 days before.
Kunming
Hotels
This time we stayed 1 night at Lost Garden Guesthouse (expensive) and the second night at Upland Youth Hostel – both nearby the Green Lake.
The Green Lake is a nice spot to relax and stroll around. We saw a lot of people jogging – something we hadn’t seen before in China. In the evening there were a lot of young people gathering at the lake, showing really good hip hop moves
Restaurant
We’ve been to a recommendation of LP – the only real Chinese looking restaurant on the “food & bar street” north of the Green Lake. You will recognize it by the people waiting outside, sitting on small plastic chairs and waiting for a table.
Our tip: Try the big fish in the red sauce – it’s fried, sweat-sour and one of the best dishes we had in whole China! Also not to miss: the duck with a lot of crispy skin
Kunming to Guilin
It’s good to buy the train tickets (20 hrs ride) as soon as possible. Guilin is one of China’s most popular tourist destinations and in high season the train tickets sell out quickly.
Thank you for reading!
Safe travels
Zài jiàn!
Claudia & Tom
What happened next in Guangxi province? Are the rice terraces of Xingping really that beautiful? You can read it here.
Find tips and general remarks to China 2015 and the links to the previous provinces – from our start in Beijing in June, down to the south west, until our last stay Hong Kong in July here.
