A Frenzied Farewell to Kunming

In anticipation of our last free Saturday in Kunming, Fafa and I made a plan to visit the Western Hills (Xishan) overlooking Dianchi Lake. Throughout the week and Saturday morning, our party slowly expanded to a group of six – besides Fafa and me, Shayley (a classmate from Yale, appearing anonymously in the previous posts “Examinations and Excursions,” and “Cheer up, Captain, buy a flower off a poor girl”), Elizabeth (previously seen in “A Note on Guitars”), Bekkah, and Shuting (Fafa herself should be familiar from the post “Cheer up, Captain, buy a flower off a poor girl”).

We left at nine in the morning with Fafa at the helm, boarding the bus to the closest metro station and then riding to its final stop at the foot of the Western Hills. Fafa noted the journey took exactly 52 minutes.

The hike was not exactly what I imagined it to be. The road from the metro station to the park’s actual entrance was broad and asphalted, swarmed by locals looking to get out of the city for the weekend. Every few minutes, the crowds would scatter before a tourist bus cruising up and down the mountain at a very unsafe speed – once or twice, my life flashed before my eyes as I imagined myself splattered on the front of a bus.

We stopped by two temples on our way to the entrance. The first housed five hundred golden statues, with a huge statue of the thousand-armed Guanyin at the very centre. The second was not as impressive, but housed a very good, relatively cheap vegetarian eatery.

 A temple at the foot of the Western Hills

 A deer statue

 Dragon detail

 Another dragon detail

 A small section of the 500 Buddhas Temple

 A not very natural trail (and this is as natural as it gets)

 Dragon

Phoenix

Upon reaching the gate of the actual park, we found out that the entrance was ticketed, as were a tourist bus and a cable car, none of which we were aware of while planning our journey. We gathered around a map to lay out a plan, eventually coming to a consensus that we should buy a ticket for the cable car and then simply walk down the hill. As we soon discovered, this was the most logical plan, and therefore it coincided with the plans of almost every other tourist at the location. We waited in line for maybe half an hour before boarding the cable car, which deposited us into the midst of a crowd at a rest stop.

It took us a while before we realised that the line of people slowly moving away from the rest stop was in fact a line that snaked past the temples, caves, and gates all the way to the bottom of the park. The excruciatingly slow hike was occasionally dotted with beautiful views of the Dianchi and an occasional temple. We also spotted several vibrantly coloured birds.

Happy to make it out of the overcrowded hell hole, we boarded the pedestrian-killing bus down to the metro station. We got back a little before half past four.

Riding the cable car

 The tourist hordes around Dragon Gate, the most famous spot at Xishan

 "Dragon Gate"

 Dragon Gate from below

 A phoenix carved into the mountain

 Dianchi Lake below the mountain

 Another view of Dianchi

 Yet another view of Dianchi

Flowering trees over Dianchi Lake

It was the perfect time to return, as Shuting’s KTV group was to leave just then. The nine of us walked leisurely to the KTV place, only to find that despite all of our research, it was closed. Most people were set on using the evening to pack for tomorrow’s departure, which is why we decided to go in the afternoon in the first place. An alternative plan was quickly to put into action: Buy egg tarts, takeaway, bring them back to the hotel, and then eat, sing, and celebrate Shayley’s birthday. It was a fun evening.

 Shayley's birthday

After eating egg tarts