Sorry where? I hear you say. Kunming, China. Why would anyone want to go there? Ok now you sound like the immigration official when I arrived, but hear me out.
As a traveller it’s really hard these days to find somewhere that makes you feel remote, especially as an English speaker where your language is spoken pretty much everywhere. If you’re looking for somewhere to feel like a total alien, then Kunming is most definitely for you.
Kunming is the capital and largest city in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. I’d been to the airport several times on layover, the airport is an absolute behemoth. This time, I was traveling via Kunming because I needed to collect a permit to visit Tibet, which if flying can only be collected from a city mainland China. It was cheap to fly to Lhasa via Kunming from Bangkok with China Eastern airlines, so I figured, hey why not actually stop and explore the city this time. I wasn’t disappointed and there are some great attractions to visit if you ever find yourself in Kunming and bonus, most of them are free!
The Yuantong Temple
By a spectacular fluke, this temple was 150m from the hotel I stayed at. So, after being in transit already for 48 hours on my way to Lhasa from Darjeeling, I decided to take a short walk to visit. The temple is quite big and contains several spectacular gates. When you get to the back of the complex there is a pagoda on an island in the middle of a large pond. There are flowers and ornate trees everywhere as well as koi fish and turtles in the pond. There is a sacred spring at the very back of the temple, although it’s hard to understand the significance of it because there is no signage in English. (Don’t expect any signage in English anywhere in this city.)
The temple atmosphere is serene and quiet and there are people worshipping at all the different shrines containing gold statues or the various incarnations of Buddha. It’s a very authentic experience, as is everything in Kunming which doesn’t see many western tourists.
Cost: 7 RMB (approx. $1 USD)
Green Lake Park
Green Lake Park is a large green space between the hundreds of towering skyscrapers that make up the city of Kunming. It is a great place to come and just watch the people of the city enjoying some downtime, usually with their families.
As the name suggests the main feature of Green Lake Park is the central lake and everything else in the park is situated around it and on islets in the centre. It has four gates one for each direction on the compass, I entered via the east gate. Surprisingly, Green Lake Park is one of the only places in Kunming with English signage dotted around the place pointing the way to various attractions contained with in the park.
The park has some local markets, I found a lady selling handmade local jewellery, I’ll bet she was glad she met me! It has a food district and lots of little pagodas dotted on the lake’s islets. Mostly its just a nice place to come and hang out.
Cost: Free
Nanping walking street
Now the name of this place is deception, because it’s not just one walking street like say Khao San Road in Bangkok or even Wang Fu Jing Street in Beijing, this is an entire area and it’s huge.
You can get to Nanping walking street via the use of Didi, China’s version of Uber. Once there it’s pretty much like Wang Fu Jing Street in Beijing, only not quite as grand. Lots of upmarket shops, western style shopping centres, but venture a little further in almost any direction and you’ll just happen upon more and more market areas. So traditional, some not so much. I managed to find a great area for street food and gorged myself on my one of my favorite Chinese snacks – lotus root chips!
There was a great traditional little area which was reminiscent of old China, hutong style buildings with lanterns hanging from them and across the street. Such things are rare now in Chinese cities as the communist government seems to be trying to rid the country of heritage reminiscent of old imperialist times.
A word of warning, which this is a great place to hang out, I did happen upon the animal market which largely sells animals for people to have as pets – kittens, puppies, fish, birds, turtles. If you don’t want to see 15 kittens crammed into a tiny cage, this place probably isn’t for you. If I find myself back in Kunming I will avoid this area as I found it disturbing.
Cost: Free
The Yunnan Railway Museum
This was probably my favourite thing in Kunming. I mean, this blog is called “Train bound for nowhere” for a reason.
The Yunnan Railway Museum details the history and construction of the railway through Yunnan province to Vietnam by the French occupational forces. There are various exhibits, some of which have information in English. The main exhibit on the original Yunnan Railway has most things in English and contains detailed information, plans, equipment and stories about the railway’s construction.
There is another exhibition about the introduction of bullet trains to Yunnan, but nothing in this exhibit is in English. If you were interested enough, you could use the built in translator in AliPay (remember Google doesn’t work in China) and self-translate the signage, but it’s a lot and you would have to be REALLY interested in this aspect of Chinese trains.
By far the most interesting part of the museum is the lower floor on which a variety of old engines and carriages are on display. These range from old steam engines, to diesels, coal cars, coaches and even the old Michelin train which ran on tyres.
The museum operates by everyone following the arrows so if you’re only interested in one exhibit it can be a bit frustrating, I really wanted to see the actual trains on the lower level and this is the last place you visit for example. When you go in, you will also have to place all your belongings in an x-ray machine and the staff will likely be quite confused by your presence there as a foreigner.
This is a great exhibit and if you’re a train buff like I am don’t miss it.
Cost: Free
The Kunming Museum
I visited this one after the Yunnan Railway museum and it was easy to get between the two using a DiDi. The Kunming Museum contains all sorts of exhibits, not just about Kunming itself, but about Yunnan province in general.
My favorite exhibit was on the Dian culture which was present in Yunnan from about 400-100 AD. I have a background in archaeology, but don’t know a lot about the archaeology of ancient China, so I found this really fascinating.
There was also a small dinosaur exhibition as well as one on the little known “Flying Tigers”, an elite air unit from the US sent to help China fend of the Japanese invasion in World War Two. I’d never heard of it, so this was really interesting.
The museum also contains various Chinese art including Ming vases, fan art, local dress and beautiful wall hangings.
Cost: Free
Taoist temple
I stumbled on this little gem on the way to the Kunming Museum, I saw it out the window while in the DiDi. I thought, that looks cool, I’m going to go back to that after the museum if I have time (I needed to be back at the airport at 3pm). I did have time, so I managed to retrace the DiDi route and find the temple.
It is a very local affair, almost a smaller version of the Yuantong temple and very, very colourful. It has a couple of areas, each separated by walls and a gate. There are local people praying at shrines to gods and an area full of bonsai trees.
One of the coolest things about the temple is the towering skyscrapers visible from the main courtyard, that present a view of modern China, towering over old China. It’s another lovely quiet place if you want some time to sit (there are plenty of places) and reflect or just some time out from the hustle of the city.
Cost: Free
In short, Kunming was a surprise, I arrived here thinking I’d just be killing time while I collected my permit for Tibet and left wishing I had more time in this amazing city. Yunnan province, I’ve since found out, has a lot of offer and Kunming makes a good base for further exploration, so who knows, maybe there will be a return trip.