Ah, Kunming. We had a pretty average time when we were first there; getting to the Stone Forest was an epic chore, the hotel staff was incompetent, there was a street vendor playing endless Happy Birthday tunes outside our window, and Michelle lost her shoes. We were happy to see the back of it and weren’t too keen on coming back. At least it was only for one night. Or so we thought.
Our travel agent had looked at the intrepid schedule and decided that we would need an extra night at either end of our trip. This was fine at the start, as we didn’t want to fly in and start our tour on the same day, but the last day of the tour is called ‘departure day’ for a reason. Nevertheless, the travel agent booked us in for an extra night to be safe, and so we would have to endure Kunming for one more day.
I was determined not to let Kunming get the better of us, and although Michelle was a bit over the whole thing we headed off to check out the recommended sites. Our hotel being absolutely useless, we had to head to one up the road to get travel advice. The receptionist helpfully laid out all the travel options, but it all seemed a bit too complicated and Michelle was advocating spending the entire day sleeping in the hotel room. After a minor domestic, we grabbed some snacks and hailed a taxi, keen to get on our way.
The first taxi took one look at the first destination (15km away in the hills) and waved us away. Advantage, Kunming. Undeterred, we managed to get into the next cab and were finally on our way. The driver turned out to be a really nice guy, and he quickly guessed that we would need a ride back after visiting the first temple. After a bit of negotiating we settled on a price for taking us around all day (about $50) which saved us from having to deal with public transport. The first temple was great and things were looking up. Advantage us.
There is a saying in Kunming (well, actually in the Lonely Planet section on Kunming) that goes “If you haven’t seen Xi Shan (the western hills) then you haven’t seen Kunming” and so off to the western hills we went. There is a walking track that takes you to the summit, but we were feeling lazy and so got the taxi to take us to the highlights. The very top is a place called Dragon Gate (“…and if you haven’t seen the Dragon Gate, you haven’t seen Xi Shan”) and so we made our way to the entrance and got ready to go. That was when the thunderstorm hit.
It had been getting a little cloudier at each stop along the way, as if Kunming was getting angry that we were enjoying ourselves so much. When we reached the entrance to the Dragon Gate, the skies opened and it started bucketing down. We hid with our driver in a parking building until it subsided, and he loaned us his umbrella so we could keep dry (he was unusually nice). We decided to by tickets on the tourist tram to avoid the hike, but the rain and thunder started again and we ended up camped under a shop awning until it passed again.
Michelle bought us some raincoats (at no doubt inflated prices) and we gave the Dragon Gate our best shot. The path has been literally carved into the side of a mountain, and in places there were sheer drops with only a flimsy handrail and a caution sign standing between you and a very messy end. Michelle got wobbly knees about half way up and so I made the last dash to the summit by myself. I was a bit too paranoid to get my camera out, so I made do with snaps from my iPhone.
Satisfied that we had given Kunming our best shot, we negotiated the slippery carved stone steps back to our driver and made our way back to the hotel. The driver then asked if we could pay him some more, as it took longer than he anticipated. I was planning to tip him anyway (he was really, very nice) so we were happy to pay. We finally arrived back in town, cold, wet and very tired. We paid the taxi driver and went to crash out, but Kunming wasn’t done with us yet. We had given the driver a deposit at the first stop, but had forgotten to deduct it from the final amount. Looks like he got a bit fat tip in the end anyway. He was probably laughing all the way home. Alright Kunming, we surrender. You win.
