Today we're off to Dali. So, this morning, we took in, with great regret, our last little glimpses of Kunming (we're coming back for a couple of days next week, before we fly out, but we're going to be in a slightly different area).






And then we're Didi-ing to the railway station, bearing our hotel-gifted "rose flower cake". Kunming is famous for these, and we'd nobly resisted so far. But you can't look a gift cake in the mouth... They're nice, actually. Soft buttery pastry, and a genuinely rosy filling.


But I digress... This is Kunming's massive station, which has several trains per hour to Dali:



Why did we pick Dali? Well, it's not far on the train, it's somewhere different, and it looked very picturesque...

And the journey went pretty well. On arriving at Kunming station, you shove your luggage through the scanner (but there's no need to separate your electronic stuff). Then, to proceed, you need to have your ID verified. Chinese citizens can go through automatic gates, but oddballs like us have to do the "manual check", which -- given there are not many of us -- can actually turn out to be quicker. We easily found seats in the big upstairs hall, and then, shortly before the train is due, they open the gates, and you go through another identity check (same procedure as before).

I'm always awed by China's ability to move people. There were hundreds of us streaming through these gates, and queuing up by the signs for our respective carriages. And just like that, we're all on, and the train is moving punctually on. All in the five minutes allocated.

The train seats are all occupied, but you have your reserved one, so that's OK. This is not a super-fast service, so it takes two hours and 20 minutes to get to Dali. The route is quite scenic, with nice views of mountains. But there are also long stretches where you're looking out onto the inside of a tunnel. We arrived on time, and once you emerge, you have to do one last ID check to get out.

A pick-up from the station was part of the hotel deal, and by means of the indispensable WeChat (which Nigel had managed to download after considerable aggro), we rendezvoused successfully. I'd quickly exhausted my 20 words of Chinese, and they had no English, but we did a bit of WeChat exchanging, and then just enjoyed the views. What you immediately notice are the etched walls of the buildings (this is a tradition of the Bai minority that's very significant round here, and there are some Dali examples in the pictures below).


The other thing you notice is that your internet is very blippy... Whoever Digi partners with in these parts doesn't seem to have very extensive coverage, and given we use the internet for EVERYTHING, from navigating to communicating to paying, its quality really matters...

Anyway, we arrive. The hotel is not quite up to the spectacular standards of the Babymoon, but the room is nice enough. Sitting area, sleeping area, bathroom area -- which includes a bath with a view...:



The mountains are very perceptible here, and we're not even seeing their full extent, as the tops are hidden in the clouds.

So, the situation is lovely. But...

We'd opted to stay in the old town. What's known as Dali actually extends over a considerable distance round the western and southern end of a huge lake. Originally, I thought of staying down at the bottom, closer to the train station. Then I thought, maybe not; if we stay there, all the interesting old stuff is miles away, and surely it's better to be a bit closer to all that.

Picturesque it certainly is. But it's also packed... Packed, in a wall-to-wall sort of way. We were in the old town area in Kunming, as well. But somehow that's diluted by the mass of normality all around. Here, the normality seems to be somewhere else entirely (probably further south near the railway station...). We had originally thought of going to Lijiang as well, which is even more of a tourist town. So glad we didn't...

Anyway, here's our little tour of Friday-evening Dali:












Cheering us up slightly from our very definite uh-oh-what-have-we-done-here mood were two finds: A nice coffee shop and a good supermarket. So, it's not all bad...