My boyfriend and I went backpacking to Yunnan for 2 weeks. It was in January, probably the coldest time of the year.
When we first arrived in Kunming,
we couldn't wait to get out of the city to see a bit of nature, therefore we took a 3-hour road-trip to Dongchuan for the red land. We arrived late and were stuck in the place since there were no more buses. We couldn't believe we were rejected by motels as we didn't have Chinese ID cards. Eventually we ended up in a 5-star hotel for a night.
What a great start!
We took a cable car through the clouds to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain which was 5596m above sea level, then went down to Blue Moon Valley to enjoy the views.
The day-trip was touristy but it was an area of scenic beauty that we couldn't miss.
The hike to Tiger Leaping Gorge was epic but frustrating. We left our hostel at 6:30 a.m. for Qiatoa. We hiked for 9 hours (I skipped the first two hours by riding a horse) to reach Tea-Horse Guesthouse on the first day.
I woke up the next morning with my nose bleeding and phlegm in my throat. We kept on hiking to reach the end of Tiger Leaping Gorge for 5 hours in total to catch the bus by 3 p.m. It was killing me. We had to climb the sky ladder with bare hands to get out of the gorge. For the very first time, I actually felt like I could die there, but I survived and carried my cold to Shangri-La City.
We went back to Kunming from Shangri-La City.
I couldn't enjoy the city that much as I was sick. I managed to have an awesome lamp hot pot, and go to Ganden Sumtseling Monastery.
It took a day to reach Yuanyang County - Duoyishu, the village with rice terraces. The nature was jaw-droppingly beautiful, but most villagers were travel scammers, which I didn't like very much.
We took a midnight train to Dali. It was tough as there was only a ticket for one seat left, which meant one of us had to stand. It was worth it as Dali was so beautiful with genuine people. We took a chairlift to Cangshan, then we rented an electric scooter to roll around Erhai Lake for 7 hours. The scenery was magnificent!
We headed to Lijiang afterwards, stayed in Laoxie Chemadian Youth Hostel for 2 nights. The hostel dog, Little White, followed us for 6 hours to Elephant Mountain and Yuquan Park. We went back to the hostel to find a table full of hot pot, meat balls and vegetable stir-fry, and were only charged ¥20 per head. It was the best meal we had in Yunnan. We ended the beautiful night with singing, drinking, and chitchats.
