Hong Kong > Kunming > Yuanyang rice terraces > Jianshui > Dali > Lijiang > Shanghai
I escaped the exceptional Dutch/European January snowfalls because I was far away in the province of Yunnan. This province had been on my list for a very long time, and I am glad I finally made it out there.
Christmas Eve was spent at airports, because that was the cheapest day to fly out. From Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle – there were Christmas trees in both terminals, and not a lot of people. No queues for anything, just a lot of vast emptiness. Especially in the Paris airport, I didn’t time it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent 20-30 minutes walking from 2E to 2F.
From Paris I flew to Hong Kong. Instead of immediately traveling onwards, I decided to have a chill day in Hong Kong. I found a really interesting restaurant (via Michelin Bib Gourmand!) that made noodles, fries, char siu, etc. all from fish. The hotel gave me vouchers to try out local street food in the North Point area, so I hunted down all of the spots and tried herbal tea, egg waffle, rice rolls, super fresh tofu with a little sweet syrup and an egg tart. Also slept a lot and chilled in the hotel.
Then onwards to Yunnan! Around 8 hours by high-speed train from Hong Kong West Kowloon to Kunming. I tried out ordering food and having it delivered straight to my seat. I saw the landscape slowly change from flat, seaside lands to green hills to the karst rock formations in Guizhou to more mountainous areas, before arriving at Kunming in the dark evening, at an elevation of 1900 meters above sea level.
Kunming is the city of eternal spring. Even in mid-winter, there are blooming trees and flowers blossoming in parks. I’d really love to visit at a different time of year to see even more abundance. Visited ‘nearby’ Shilin Stone Forest (two hours away), a massive cave complex, and did a market tour through the hostel. I met a British woman at the tour and we saw an old town and some temples together, ate some over-the-bridge noodles, and strolled in a lakeside park. This is the fun part of traveling alone, sometimes you meet people and you see parts of the city you hadn’t totally planned on visiting – but many times these are some of the best days you’ll have.
From Kunming I travelled to the Yuanyang Rice Terraces area, and I woke up on New Year’s Day in a small village, with a view of the famous rice terraces straight from my room, with an even better view from the rooftop of the guesthouse. I strolled around the village, with chickens walking loose in the tiny alleys, and kept my balance on the rice field ridges, accompanied by the guest house owner’s dog. Shared a driver for the next day with some fellow travellers to see the market at the local town, a lot of small concrete buildings, so not a lot of cute traditional architecture but there were a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits – fruits I have not come across in my life yet, such as green jujubes – meats, household items, clothing, embroidery supplies, you can find anything there. Some sold in stalls, some sold from the back of trucks parked on the side of the road. That day we also saw a lot more rice terraces, hiked through rice terraces, and ending with a foggy and cloudy sunset where I made one of my favourite pictures of the trip (small selection of Yunnan photos can be found at the very bottom of this post).
From the rice terraces onwards to Jianshui, a smaller city with a traditional city wall, massive gates (think Forbidden City in Beijing) and lots of old, historical buildings. The main streets were big, but there were so many small alleyways to explore. Needing a hit of caffeine, I followed the Chinese sign for ‘coffee’ into an alleyway, going left and right, going through a circular gateway and ending up in a courtyard cafe filled with sleeping cats. Slightly wished I stayed at least a night longer there. In my trip planning, I really wanted to hit so many places and it was so difficult to choose, I only had one night here, but the reality is: I love a slow pace. Lessons for next time.
The next stop was Dali (after an overnight stop in Kunming). Stayed in Dali Old Town, though there are many more towns along the big Erhai lake to explore. I went up the cable car to Cangshan mountain, hitting 4000 meters in elevation. There is boardwalk walkway to explore the mountain, but I must say, don’t underestimate what elevation does to your body. It looks like an easy walk, but it is not. Back in town, I wandered around the very touristy Old Town streets. The very touristy is marked by having countless shops that all sell the local specialty tea, coffee or snack, in very impractical big gift packages. But at least you get to taste a lot of it for free. The best part of the day, was finding a lovely local coffee, off of these touristy streets, with really nice cakes and specialty coffee (Yunnan also grows coffee, so specialty coffee is a big thing here). Some of the nicest taxi drivers here: my hotel was at the end of an alleyway, so the driver helped carry the luggage and find the hotel; I bought the ticket to Cangshan Cable Car online, so the driver helped exchange it for the tickets at the tickets, before driving on to the actual entrance still a few minutes driving away.
Train rides in Yunnan are marvelous, with amazing views of green mountains and snowy tops high up. Dali to Lijiang was the same. Lijiang Old Town is actually terribly cute, even though touristy with a similar line of local specialty shops, the architecture of it, with the alleyway-staircases-combo’s, the views over the rooftops, is not to be missed. From Lijiang, I made a day trip to Jade Snow Dragon Mountain, and hit my personal highest point probably ever in my life: 4500 meters elevation (apart from being in an airplane). How do you get this high? Well, Lijiang by itself is already at 2400m, then you drive up to the base area, which is around 3000m and includes Blue Valley ( a valley filled with incredibly bright blue lakes), then a cable car up towards the top. All armed with oxygen bottles and a puffy coat provided by the tour company. At the top, you can even walk a little higher, but I opted not to. I chugged my oxygen, made pictures, bought a nice warm rose tea (and yes, the mobile coverage is so great, you even have great reception at 4500m, and you can pay for it with your mobile), and just enjoyed looking out over the snowy tops, the clouds, and feeling the cold wind gushing around me. I went to the departure area, passed someone in the queuing area suffering from elevation sickness and throwing up in the specially designated bin for this, and took a car back down again, to more normal heights, feeling suddenly so much less sluggish and heavy than up top.
I left Lijiang by plane, to get myself to Shanghai for my flight home. The plane took off and I enjoyed a lot of mountain views from my window seat, soon followed by a nice warm chicken and rice meal (as is standard on pretty much any short-haul flights in Asia). In Shanghai I caught up with some friends, read a lot, in bed, with room-service breakfast, in a lovely cafe, and saw beautiful embroidery and craftmanship in a qipao exhibition at the Shanghai Museum.
There was a lot more that I did – so I guess these were some of the highlights. Winter in Yunnan is lovely, with temperatures hovering around 17-19 degrees in the afternoons, but with the strong sun it feels a lot warmer, and I drank a lot of coffees in outside in the sun with a book in my hands, while north-west Europe got caught in snow storms.