Day 11: Shangri-la to Kunming, Wednesday 1st October 2025
Good luck knots with notes
16°, low cloud/rain in Shangri-la, – 24° cloudy / showers in Kunming
NZ$1 = Y4
Y1=NZ$0.25
Up at 8am, packed our bags and down for breakfast at 8:30am ( same as yesterday’s ), back up to finish packing and checked out at 9am. The hotel driver was taking us to the train station this morning; again very little English was spoken. The 1st of October is a National Day in China so we were a bit worried about traffic etc getting to the train station so we were leaving early. The roads were very quiet so we needn’t have worried.
We were dropped off in the main square of the train station and walked through the rain to the main entrance. Through security but no ticket check at this station entrance. We bought some snacks etc waited for the train to open. This station is the smallest we have seen so far with just a large single waiting area a single gate line leading to the trains.
The train opened at 9:45am ( for a 10:05am departure ), we went through the ticket check and up to the platform and onto train ( train C640 coach 11, 2nd class ). This train took the same route as we took to get to Shangri-la but made a few more stops so took about an hour linger. We left on time with a good trip but the weather varied from rain, to complete fog to sunny ( a real mountain climate ).
We arrived at 4pm in Kunming Railway station ( it started to pour with rain as we arrived but it soon cleared ). We walked out the north entrance of the station ( the opposite side to where we entered a couple of days ago ) and walked north through the carpark/taxi ranks to find Gefei Hotel which we had booked for 2 nights.
We couldn't find it so asked a shop owner and she pointed to the VX Hotel next door. Either the hotel had changed names or it had more than 1 name. The Chinese name matched the information we had and it looked like the same place, so we checked at 4:25pm ( NZD$175 for 2 nights including breakfast ) and went up to our room ( 8409 ). We booked this hotel due to it being near to the railway station so didn’t have high expectations but it was a nice hotel, with a garden area with restaurants and our room had a nice view of the railway station. We relaxed, did some much needed laundry ( free laundry in the hotel ) and watched the world out the window.
Out at 6:30, walked north on Beijing Rd to Huancheng Rd then west to Haoyue World mall ( about a 1/2 hour walk ). I bought 2 “Nike” cool t shirts in a shop on the way for Y30/$7 ea.
Went into the mall and down to find foodcourt; it was a bit tricky as signage was confusing and it turns out the ‘foodcourt’ was half empty with just 6 or so food outlets. We had a bowl of dumpling soup and a bowl of beef noodles and a soft drink for Y27!
Walked to Decathlon, Liz bought another top ( same as one from Xian, Y120 ) and some yoga pants ( Y150 ).
Left the mall and walked back to hotel, arrived at 8:30pm.
Rested.
Zoomable Map ( pin is located roughly on our hotel location )