Give Kunming two days on the way west, not a stopover of two hours

Most people treat the Spring City as a transfer to Dali and Lijiang. It repays a day or two: Green Lake with its Siberian gulls in winter, the university lanes off Wenlin Street, the Yuantong Temple under its cliff, and weather that never gets extreme.

Trains to Dali take about two hours and Lijiang about three, and they leave from two stations — Kunming in the city and Kunming South far out on metro line 1. Check which one is on your ticket the day before, not on the morning.