Day 16. To Kunming

We checked out of the hotel at 8am, which was before the free breakfast would be served. The hotel staff seamed some buns, packed them with some yogurt for us to eat on our way. It took me a long time to get a Didi ride. This surprisingly happened a lot during our time at the Yunnan province, in both Lijiang and Dali. We still managed to get to the train station on time.

We took a bullet train to Kunming. I had booked the train tickets on Ctrip a few days prior. I timed my departure from the hotel so that I would arrive at the train station one hour before departure. That turned out to be more than plenty, 30 min would be enough. I first went to the ticket office. They told me that I did not need a ticket there, that I should be able to just use my passport to get in the terminal and get on the train. Indeed, we got in smoothly.

The train was very nice. 

We arrived Kunming in two hours. The only downside of taking a train vs. flying was that the train station in Kunming had stairs, and it was not easy to move our luggage around that.

I had booked a driver to pick us up at the train station and drop off at the hotel in Kunming. I booked it on Ctrip because I got some coupon. The driver was late, so we had to wait a bit to get in the car. I should have just used the taxi, which was plenty at the train station. 

We stayed at the Double Tree by Hilton Kunming Airport (昆明空港希尔顿逸林酒店). This hotel was the priciest in this trip, yet the service was just ok in comparison with other hotels we stayed at. It was in the same building complex with a group of other hotels, so maybe next time we should try a different hotel there. All hotels in this complex offer free shuttle service to the airport. The van was shared by guests from all hotels.

There were a few restaurants in this building complex. We randomly picked one and I had Yunnan rice noodle.