Kunming Hotels
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Day 54
Entry 54 of 169 | show all | print this entry |
I decided very early this morning that I would leave Dali today and head to Kunming. Dali had been a little disappointing after the joys of Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge so I thought it best to move on. I took the bus with Antonio and Nadia while Steve, Arjen and Audrey stayed another day at the Dragon Fly, Dali.
We first had to catch a bus to Dali's new town. This distinction frequently confuses travellers but we'd done our research and knew that there were no buses to Kunming from the old town. Antonio asked if I wanted any food as he went off to grab some street food near the station. "Whatever you're having please" I answered hoping for some crisps or chocolate. A few minutes later he returned with corn on the cobs and hard boiled eggs! Not the most convenient snacks for the bus but hey-ho. Antonio and Nadia are both super fit so I shouldn't have set my hopes on chocolate.
Antonio and Nadia have friends in Kunming so that meant I had to find a hostel on my own. That was an adventure since I'd told Steve and the Dutch couple that I would be at Cloudland Hostel without fail - they'd be arriving the next day. I realised on the bus that Cloudland had no entry in the lonely planet and that we'd only heard about it as a recommendation from a guy in Lijiang. That guy owned a bar called "Sexy Tractor" and I still had his business cards in my wallet. I'd promised him I would promote his bar by leaving these cards in hostels around south-west China - a job I had done well as he now has his card in the Halfway House guesthouse in the deepest gorge in the world - Tiger Leaping! I phoned him up while I was still in transit and his instructions were something like "oh yes, dats roight, yous need da sixty-four bus from the station - get off the bus once you've turned a roight down a street with all bicycles for sale and that". I wondered whether I should give this a go but it was dark already and I just knew that in a city of 10 million there would be bikes for sale on every corner! I opted for a safer route to cloudland - go to a hostel that is on my guide book, find Cloudlands phone number from the internet and get directions from them over the phone. That actually worked, the intermediate hostel was an absolute dive so I'm glad I didn't need to stay there. I went outside, hailed a cab, dialed the number and handed the phone to the cab-driver who took directions in Chinese from the receptionist, within 10 minutes I was at Cloudland!
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