Unpleasant Experience in Kunming

So far, there were a few cases of people trying to cheat us, meeting with unfriendly or rude people, but nothing beat this!

It happened in the Kunming airport. Look, I have been traveling a lot, otherwise I wouldn’t be running this travel blog. I’ve flew a lot, including to places like Pakistan. Nothing beat the uncivilized treatment in Kunming airport.

There wasn’t any clear direction and there wasn’t any real queue at all. You can queue on a line for half an hour and got bumped off when it is your turn. Every counter is busy, no one would monitor the queues.

This was what happened to us. We queued for nearly 30 minutes, and when there was just one couple in front of us, suddenly this guy rushed in and asked us to “excuse him”. At first I thought he wanted to ask something at the counter, but no heck! He was jumping queue.

The issue is, he wasn’t just jumping our queue, he even jumped the queue for the couple in front of us – whom the counter was serving half way! And the airline staff allowed that to happen. I mean, if you are serving this couple, why do you turn and serve this man.

The worst thing is, he doesn’t just represent a person. When he is in the ‘queue’, his luggage all arrived:

These are his luggage, and apparently he was checking in for a group! This airport is bad because they do not provide group check-in counter. And I believe that IS the root cause to the mess.

This not only happened to our line, but to all lines. I hope the Yunnan government do something about it, or it would hinder people away…

Kunming Attraction - Yunnan Nationalities Village

There are 52 minorities in China, and out of that 51 are in Yunnan. It is almost impossible to visit all the tribes in a short stay, so the Yunnan Nationalities Village comes in handy.

It is a place that gathers the major tribes, displaying them in their most original form with performances. It is best to spend the whole day in it, coz it is very big and walking from a tribe to another takes time. Without watching the performance, it is also as good as not being there, so prepare to spend some time there. We were there after 3pm, so we missed quite many small villages and performances. :(

Here are some to share with you…

Wazu (瓦族)
Wazu is quite dark and seriously they look really like our Malay friends! Their men are one of the most macho type that we’ve seen so far, with long hair and muscular body… very attractive! :p

Here is part of their cultural performance:

Daizu (傣族)
This tribe is from Xishuangbanna (西双版纳), south of Yunnan. They are very similar to our Thailand friends. They practice the same religion and have the same believe. They also celebrate the same thing – the Water Festival.


When we were there, it was just during the water festival, so we could see many people shooting water, and they even sell raincoats and water guns to tourists! My camera almost spoilt in this, as I wasn’t prepared when someone shot me water! LOL!

Miaozu (苗族)
There are actually two Miaozu villages here, at least from the map. The main one was out of our way, and we visited this smaller one. There are Miao girls doing some sewing in their hut, but no performance though. There was a church there, but people there was not that friendly.


Local Snacks
Along the street, you can find them selling local snacks. We bought 3 types to try:


Top left: smelly toufu, which is actually spicy but not smelly at all!
Top right: French fries with spicy sauce – a better and more Asian alternatives to the western French fries. This is the most yummy of the three.
Bottom: pumpkin cake, a sweet snack, which is not my type.

Night Performance
After dinner, they had nigh performance at the square. There is a mix of Lisu tribe (傈僳族) famous performance of climbing knife ladders, songs from Wazu, dances from Yizu (彝族), walking on burnt coals, etc.

The night performance ended with group cultural dance, similar to the one we experienced in Shuhe told town in Lijiang.

Kunming Attraction - Stone Forest

"The Stone Forest of Yunnan has been inscribed upon the World Heritage List of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage."

This is written on the entrance ticket, adding on to its value for tourists!


I have heard of this long time ago, with strongest impression coming from Wisely’s novel “魔磁”. In that story, a round metallic item was found within the stone forest, with material not familiar by any scientists…

Actually I see this place very similar to the Pinnacles in Perth, Australia. Visiting these two places you need to have good imaginations, coz the stones can really represent anything that you can imagine.

Take a few examples…


On the top left picture, isn’t it look like a pig? On the top right, they look like 2 torches of fires! Bottom left is seen as a GuanGong (关公) and bottom right looks like a cat!

At the end of our tour in Stone Forest, we saw some of the Yizu people gathered and danced. These are old folks, and they are still looking great and fit!!


Here is a short video of their dance:

Eat in Dali and Kunming

First Start in Kunming
On our first night in Kunming, we went to watch YangLiPing’s show. Before the show started, we found this Stone House Restaurant just nearby the KunMing Hall. It gave us a great start of our journey. The food was delicious, the ambience was great, and the price was reasonable. We spent RMB110 in total.

We ordered a plate of mushroom (老树菇), green veggie and chicken with ‘magic yam’ (魔芋). They are very spicy – a trait for all Yunnan food. Yummy!

Cost: RMB 110
Address: 昆明市北京路程27号茶花公园
Tel: 0871-3183388
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Most satisfying dinner in Dali
We were transported to Dali from Lijiang by car. The driver is from Bai tribe (白族), originated in Dali. He is very nice (unlike the Lijiang driver!) and wanted to ensure we are happy before he left us.

He dropped us in this restaurant (my God! We didn’t even know the name of the place!) before leaving for his next pick up. When he did that, he even told the shop owner to treat us nicely and not to charge us too much!

Here are the 3 dishes we ordered. Again, they don’t have a menu and we had to order from their rack of ingredients…


The first row is fried meat. After starving from meat for a few days (their chicken has no meat!), this is really satisfying! The second row is fried 茶树菇, a type of mushroom. And the third row is fried wild vegetables – too bitter for us, we ended up didn’t eat that.

There were 2 other dishes not in the picture – fried egg with cucumber, and a bowl of pickles (free).

This meal is the cheapest of all! Only cost us RMB50. Most worthy, coz we were so satisfied with real meat… :p

Sorry, no address, we were kind of lost in that city! LOL!

Cost: RMB 50
Address: Unknown, near the train station
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Cheap Lunch in Kunming
Well, we actually tried to go to either one of two restaurants. With address on hand, the taxi driver dropped us on a spot and pointed on our right that the shop is just ‘there’. But, we couldn’t find. After asking a few people, who were all very unfriendly, we finally walked along the street until we found an eating place – this was just plainly random.

I believe this is a place for local students and workers. It was really, really, really cheap!


We ordered 3 dishes and 3 drinks, and it only cost us RMB 19 (less than RM10!!!).

Cost: RMB 19
Address: Unknown, Kunming
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Dinner in Yunnan Cultural Village
Since we were inside the Yunnan Cultural Village (云南民族村) during dinner, and due to water festival the Dai tribe (similar to Thai) was quite happening, so we decided to eat there.

Here is what we ordered:


Their bamboo stick rice is different from those in Malay kampong. They are made of normal fragrant rice instead of glutinous rice. The rice absorbed the fragrant of the bamboo, smells really good! With the compression of cooking inside the bamboo, the rice also has a kind of chewy texture, though not as strong as the glutinous rice. A must try if you go there.

Other dishes that we ordered were spicy toufu wrapped in some leafs, eggplant, and a plate of grilled spare ribs. The spare ribs are very spicy, but very nice. Love it very much. The toufu is too spicy for me, so I didn’t really take it. :p

Cost: RMB 95
Address: Dai tribe restaurant, Yunnan Nationality Village, Kunming
Website: http://www.Yn25.com
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Lunch at Stone Forest
We were given free ride to the Stone Forest in Kunming, but lunch and entrance fees were covered. So, we ordered our lunch separately from the tour group.

One of a local dishes that we have always wanted to try is double boiled chicken soup (汽锅鸡), so we ordered that and two veggie dishes:


The chicken soup is quite expensive, so we paid quite a lot for this meal.

Cost: RMB 135
Address: Just outside the entrance to the Stone Forest, Kunming
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Mushrooms Dinner
You might notice that we often order mushrooms in many of our meals in Yunnan. Yes, mushroom is one of their local specialties. There is a lot for export and for tourists to purchase home, which I also bought 2 packs – 牛肝菌for my mom and 鸡枞菌for my MIL. The latter is more popular amongst the Naxi tribe, but I haven’t got a chance to try, so bought a pack for MIL to cook. LOL!

After our return from the Stone Forest, the driver dropped us to a restaurant that specializes in mushroom steamboats. We didn’t know it is so expensive to eat that, and got shocked with the price.

As we wanted to try different mushrooms, we ended up mixed with a few. Later, we found out that the locals do not mix, coz it spoils the real taste of the mushrooms, which is true from our experience! We ended up couldn’t tell which is which. LOL!


Top left: Similar to other places, there is no menu, and we have to order from the fridge.
Top center: 3 plates of 6 mixed mushrooms
Top right: 2 veggies and toufu
Bottom left: close up of the most expensive mushroom on the right – 羊肚菌
Bottom right: boiling all in the pot for 15 minutes before they can be eaten, to neutralize the toxic of mushrooms

Cost: RMB 237 (they said normally they spend RMB400-500, and ours are cheaper as we mixed too much!)
Address: Unknown in Kunming
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Real local snack/lunch
And this is our last meal before leaving Yunnan: BaBa wrap YaoZaGuai (粑粑包油条)! The Baba is like roti Naan. They take half stick of YaoZaGuai, wrap it with that roti naan thingy and put sesame spicy sauce inside. This thing is very filling, and the sesame sauce is very delicious, but… * sigh * too spicy for me again!


Cost: RMB 6
Address: NA – road side stall below a bridge