Day 5 Erhai Lake

Itinerary for the day was the east shores of Erhai lake.  While photos on the internet looked good, AI kept warning that our first destination of Lixiangbang (the China 'Santorini) wasn't 'authentic'.   When we got there.... OHH the place is basically just photo set ups, like what we have back home in Sekinchan.  The modus operandi was, buy expensive drinks/food to enter an establishment with props for photo-taking.  Without that, there were limited photo opportunities.

Without paying 

We wandered around a bit. SE was against going into any establishment.  I thought, well we had come all this way.  SE remained adamant - she argued we could just take some photos around and leave.  I decided to insist we go for it.  Well a coffee was RMB68/RM40. 

  

Ah much better

Kiddos weren't in the mood to take photos.  Somewhere between the stress of dealing with my teens and the beauty of that place, I missed hubby intensely.  Sigh.  You can't quite see it in the picture above, but SE is holding Captain Hook who has been along on all our trips.  

It was an uncomfortably hot day.  The coffee arrived as a half cup hehe.

With the RM40 coffee

I think the pizza fared better for CNY118/RM70.  Too bad it was loaded with fresh capsicum which the girls dislike.

Expensive coffee and pizza

The view WAS gorgeous - blue skies, the lake.  The props weren't bad actually, only thing we weren't optimising the angles (plus I had grumpy models).  Below were the best photos.

Sky and water

Platform

Violin

Sofa

Swing

Next destination was Xiaoputao or 'Little potato island'.

Island behind with temple on it

Better picture of island

Pomegranates again

Nothing too much to see so we Didi-ed to our last destination of Shuang Lang.  This was much bigger and interesting.

More shops here

'Cross bridge noodles' for lunch - the 'bridge' here had many small toppings which you drop into the hot stone bowls filled with steaming soup, together with noodles. 

Cross bridge noodles for lunch

We wandered around the ancient town.  Initially I thought we had covered all of it, but eventually discovered that it was much larger.  

Skies and water again

Sunset here was special due to the combination of Cangshan moutains behind, clouds lit from below, all reflected by the lake.  It was nice to just sit, wait and experience.

Sunset

After that we were ready to leave. But we walked for ages before we could exit the ancient town area!  Was relieved when we finally reached the edge and could call a Didi.    

Day 4 - Cangshan mountain

Breakfast at our lovely hotel... was exactly the same every morning hahaha.  Noodle soup, steamed sweet potato and sweetcorn, orange and coffee/milk.  It was filling and delicious, but a change would have been welcome! 

Just our usual breakfast

Our agenda today was Changshan mountain. Took a Didi to the Gantong cableway.  Cost was  CNY380/RM228 for the 3 of us including the 'scenic spot' fee.  This, and also the entrance fee for the Stone Forest is steep for China so I guess this is the fee for foreigners - my dad mentioned that years ago he was in Beijing and just paid the lower fee for locals.  Well unlike him I have kindergarten-level Chinese and cannot pass for a local to save my life!  I was already delighted at having successfully purchased tickets HAHAHA. 

Successfully in the cable car 

This is quite scenic

You should move there, oh Grandmaster

We were planning to walk on the Jade Belt Path, which was a supposedly easy, mostly-flat trail.  Hmm then what the heck was this...

Looks quite high

.... and this?  

Yes still going up 

Steep steps went on for quite a distance.  Then somehow, the route became like this...

Aha yes it is flat now

We could have hit the path earlier, except I was looking for literally 'Jade Belt Path' when the signs showed 'Yudai Trail' - YUDAI is 'Jade Belt' in Chinese.  Oh well, we did see more and survive to tell the tale.  The path was repetitive after a while and the girls wanted to leave.

Some chinese writing 

So we walked back, climbed down, took the cable car and then a Didi.  It was 3pm by the time we reversed the whole journey.  I picked a random restaurant out of the many near our hotel, just because I noticed a table of people still eating.  And this turned out to be a very good meal!  For only CNY88/RM50 we got so much food!  Sliced meats of various types, pork-stuffed mushrooms, onion rings into which eggs were cracked, taiwanese sausage, various veggies, rice and even two sweet pastries.  Everything was cooked on the hot plate (which did make us rather hot as well!).  A staff helped us initially, then left once we had gotten the hang of it. 

A veritable feast!

This was the start of our 'lunners' (lunch + dinner).  Since we ate so much and so late, we could skip having a proper dinner and were hence free to eat anything we liked the rest of the day.  

Like grilled oysters

And meat pastries

Day 3 - Dali

First agenda was stuffing ourselves at the hotel buffet.  :)  Tummies happy, we checked out and took the metro to the Kunming railway station.  Tickets were RMB145/RM90 each for the 2-hour journey to Dali. 

Off again

I'm always relieved with toilets being available on journeys!  Hot water was on tap too.  

Hot tea, a book, some snacks. Ahhh

At the Dali end, got ourselves fish soup with rice and beef noodles for lunch - both were yumms! Unlike our recent trip to Korea, we didn't encounter any rules in China that you had to buy one meal per diner.  Two meals were enough for the 3 of us, though greedy me was on standby to purchase more food hehe.

 

Yummy lunch

It started to rain halfway to our hotel Z.Garden.  I'd used chatgpt to get the Chinese name (didn't notice  the hotel had provided the correct name via the chat option) and ended up getting dropped in front of a completely different place!  Luckily managed to find the hotel on Amap (Google map doesn't work well in China) with a doable 21min walk.  The rain wasn't heavy but our shoes were wet by the time we arrived.  But... look at what greeted us.

 

Welcome to my castle

My balcony - care for some tea?

I can make it for you at my bar

With lemon perhaps? Fine the lemons aren't mine

Or you can rest if you're tired

And at the corner of the room you will find a door...

...to your very own bathtub

The place was beyond huge!  And at only RMB550/RM330 a night!   

Or you could take this room. Don't mind me, just staying out of the photo

It couldn't have been more perfect.  We were within a cobblestoned area where cars can't enter.  The road leading to our hotel was lined with food stalls in the evenings and it was only a short walk to the nearest gate of the ancient town.

  

Gate to the aforementioned ancient town

We walked through the gate and were instantly happy.  It is a tourist place now but the buildings provided a lovely setting.  And people offer you samples of tea, pastry, coffee, sweets freely.  I guess it wasn't peak tourist season - there was plenty of space yet enough people around.

See? Not crowded

Quick picture here first

Mummy also wants a picture

We wandered around and eventually it was dinner time.  Went for the 'peacock banquet' common in these parts.  Various dishes are served in this peacock platter.  Ours included lemongrass grilled fish, pork ribs, pork belly and thai-style chicken salad at RMB138/RM85. Tastewise... all right, not great.  

Peacock head not edible ya

Walked around more after dinner before heading to our wonderful hotel.  How not to be happy with a place like that to return to?  Heh heh heh.

Day 2 - Stone Forest and Green Lake park

I had done a lot of research on using public transport to get around. But while bus fares are ridiculously cheap, taking Didi (the China version of Uber or Grab) is relatively affordable.  During my trip planning, 7 days had seemed enough.  It was after I'd bought air tickets that I noticed there was more to this area than it initially appeared.  Hence I figured time-efficiency beats cost-efficiency for this trip. 

Right, our first trip!  Took a Didi from the hotel to the Stone Forest.  RMB211/RM127 for a 90km, 1.5 hour trip - pretty ok methinks.  The pomegranate, which we saw depicted at various locations, apparently symbolises the ethnic diversity of Yunnan 'clustered in unity like the seeds in a pomegranate'. 

Outside the Stone Forest with a pomegranate

Entrance tickets weren't cheap by China standards - RMB130 plus 25 for the internal shuttle bus/total RM93 each.  The shuttle bus dropped us off at the actual entrance.  

First, flowers on a hat

The Stone Forest is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a karst landscape of rock pillars standing like a real forest. 

At the actual entrance

At the lotus pond

To me, it was unique and worth the trip.

And, we are at the rock area

Lots of rock pillars

Us and more rock

And even more 

SE managed to lose her shuttle bus ticket.  Sigh.  Tickets are checked upon boarding the bus, but they are not sold inside the park so we couldn't buy another one.  They were kind enough to let her board the bus so we continued sightseeing from the bus.  The area is really large.  However food is not available inside the park and we couldn't have stayed much longer anyway (it was already around lunchtime).

Another area of the park

Apparently the bus we were on only travels around internally so we had to get off.

Entrance to the minor Stone Forest area

Luckily we were allowed to board the bus out, or it would have been a long walk!  We had lunch at KFC.  Quite a challenge figuring out the promo menu but we got our food.  Then it was another challenge of finding a point where a Didi could drive in as much of the area wasn't accessible to outside vehicles. 

For our whole trip, Didis didn't take long to arrive at all.  We headed to the Green Lake park.  Ahh after all the wandering amidst rock, it was nice to be back in civilisation!  There were shops around the park.

JE and a gelato

Green lake park was lovely.  The weather was cool by then and there were plenty of people enjoying the park. My spirits lifted and I was a happy bunny. :) 

Happy people

After all the tanghulus bought by JE, she finally tasted the original made with hawthorn fruit.  I liked it, tasted like a powdery apple.  The red colour was natural too.

 

Let's check this out

You must like this park, or else

For dinner we had mushroom hotpot which was a local specialty. This felt fancy!  There were various types of mushrooms (in the wooden divided tray in the picture), poached chicken, good hotpot broth and various other items.  RMB300/RM180 though haha.  Expensive since there wasn't much meat and to me, mushrooms aren't luxury items.  We did enjoy the meal which was the important thing.

Fancy hotpot meal

Rather an expensive day!  But a good one. :)