We have been visiting towns, and one city: Shangrila, Lijiang, Dali and Kunming. The first three are all tourist towns, but almost exclusively for Chinese nationals. They are all relatively similar, in that they have pretty old town centres which tourists love to walk around whilst buying expensive authentic local products which only seem to be the same as in every other shop in the area. Of the three towns Shangrila is the least authentic because the old town was specially built to attract tourists, and the name of the town was changed to Shangrila from Zhongdian, again to attract tourists. Lijiang has the largest and most original old town, and is also the most popular destination, meaning that the crowds were enormous. It is totally geared up for extracting money from non-locals, and does it very well. Dali is probably the most honest of the three towns, if a town can be called that. It is a tourist town, but not to the exclusion of local life, which to my mind gives it more character than either of the others.
Kunming is a totally different kettle of fish. It is the closest I have seen to a true, massive Chinese city. It reminds me of Glasgow, but with sunshine. It sprawls over the area, with heavy industry surrounding it, and shops, traffic and tower blocks in the centre. Kunming does have an old town, but from what I could see, it is less than a block in size, and what is left is being demolished to make way for a mix of skyscrapers and a new old town, with more expensive shops. You can't stop progress, especially not in China.
Pics are views from the hotel in Dali, and in Kunming. We have three days left in China, then onto Laos, and no mobile data anymore. So updates will be less frequent again, unfortunately.
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