A 2024 Spring Festival Visit to Western Hills, Kunming

During the 2024 Spring Festival, it felt like the whole country was on the move. After three years of pandemic, everyone, whether flush or frugal, went out for a jaunt. Yunnan has long been known as Sichuan's backyard garden. Hot spots like Lijiang, Dali, and Xishuangbanna were not only crowded but also quite expensive. As an ordinary 9-to-5 office worker, the 1,600-yuan-per-night rate at a Dali Atour Hotel during the holiday successfully scared me away. In the end, I decided that since our goal was just to take the kid out for a break, we'd go to Kunming and have a relaxed visit.

Visiting Kunming in winter, following the spirit of 'since you're already here,' we had to go to Dianchi Lake’s Haigeng Dam to feed the seagulls even if it was crowded, and take a stroll to Western Hills’ Longmen. Here I'll detail my seagull-feeding and Western Hills hiking route—it should be fairly clear.

First, to avoid the worst crowds, I stuck to the principle of setting out as early as possible—leaving half an hour earlier could save an hour of queueing. So we got up after 7 a.m., had breakfast at the hotel, and headed out just after 8 a.m. by taxi to Haigeng Dam.

Here I'll gently grumble about Kunming's subway. As an out-of-towner, if you want to use the metro to reach various attractions in Kunming—like Dianchi Lake, Haigeng Dam, Cuihu Park, Yunnan Museum—it’s rather inconvenient. There's always that awkward one or two kilometers’ walk left to get there. With a kid, before you even start playing, you've already walked for ages; it doesn't feel very friendly. I found that taking a taxi in Kunming was actually more convenient.

Back to the main story. Our hotel was about 30 minutes from Haigeng Dam. We arrived at Guanjing Road before 9 a.m., and there was no traffic jam yet, but cars were already beginning to queue up slowly. The drop-off point was roughly where Haigeng Dam is marked on the map. There were indeed plenty of seagulls, and quite a crowd too. I suspect it was because people got off there, saw the cheerful seagulls, and then happily squeezed in right at that spot.

Since we had Western Hills planned later and also wanted to experience the cable car that soars over Dianchi Lake, our family of four fed the seagulls while also moving toward the Kunming Tourist Cableway. On the dam closer to the cable car station, there were far fewer people; at least when we were there, the railing had empty spots, unlike the main Haigeng Dam area where kids could only squeeze in or play at a distance.

Let me talk about the Western Hills route. The sightseeing there starts halfway up the mountain. There are two ways to get to that midpoint: one is by bus, the other is the Dianchi Cableway. The Dianchi Cableway station is marked on the map, on the same side as Haigeng Dam, while the bus boarding point is on the other side of Dianchi Lake. I didn’t take the bus because I wanted to enjoy the romantic Dianchi Cableway.

The Dianchi cable car is called the Kunming Tourist Cableway. You can take a round trip or one-way, depending on your plans. Since I intended to visit Yunnan Museum after Western Hills, and taking the Dianchi Cableway back would mean a shorter taxi ride, I chose the round trip.

When buying Western Hills tickets on various online platforms, you'll see that besides the standalone entrance ticket, the combo options are basically: round-trip bus + cable car + sightseeing tram + entrance ticket. The round-trip bus here refers to the bus from the foot of Western Hills to the halfway point. If you've taken the Dianchi Cableway up to the halfway point, there's no need to buy that round-trip bus ticket. So if you plan to take the Dianchi Cableway, it's not cost-effective to buy a combo that includes the round-trip bus in advance. You can decide once you reach the halfway point whether to buy a one-way bus ticket or skip it.

After getting off the Dianchi Cableway at the Western Hills halfway point, you only need to walk a few steps to see the Western Hills ticket office, where staff explain all the ticket combinations in detail. They recommend buying the Western Hills cable car and sightseeing tram tickets. The tram route along the way has no scenic spots whatsoever. As the map shows, the Western Hills cable car and tram connect the two ends of the scenic area's highlights. You can take the cable car up, enjoy the sights while walking down, and then take the tram down the mountain; or you can take the tram up, climb upward, and then ride the Western Hills cable car down.

I chose to go up by tram and down by cable car. The reason is that most people take the cable car up, so at that time the cable car has queues while the tram doesn't. When it's time to go down, the tram gets long lines while the cable car has relatively few people. Plus, when you're climbing a mountain, going upward is what truly counts as climbing.

I suggest hiring a guide if you can while climbing; listening to stories while enjoying the scenery helps offset the fatigue of the climb. Western Hills isn't large and the climb isn't too tough. However, due to crowd control later on, we ended up climbing one section of stairs twice. Still, after coming down on the Western Hills cable car it was just past noon. We had lunch, took the Dianchi Cableway to enjoy the views, and then leisurely grabbed a taxi to Yunnan Museum.

As our family came down from the Western Hills cable car and later returned to the Dianchi lakeside on the Dianchi Cableway, we saw queues stretching endlessly. So yes, the earlier you can go, the better.

I thought my itinerary was fairly reasonable, but because of the holiday peak, after getting off the Dianchi Cableway, I originally planned to grab a taxi on the spot to Yunnan Museum. BUT, as Guanjing Road was jammed and it's also near Yunnan Ethnic Village, we ended up walking nearly 2 kilometers before we could hail a taxi. If I did it again, I probably wouldn't spend as much time on Haigeng Dam. I'd go straight by taxi to the Kunming Tourist Cableway, because from Haigeng Dam to the cableway, including walking and playing, it actually took over 40 minutes.

Haigeng Dam does have lots of seagulls, but personally I think just enjoying the scenery is nice. There are many other places in Kunming to feed seagulls. Our hotel was very close to Daguan Park; after breakfast, a stroll over to feed the seagulls there—with fewer crowds—is another good option, or you can head elsewhere.

By the way, Kunming’s Laoyuhe Wetland Park is truly beautiful, a great leisure spot. The waterside scenery is gorgeous. We arrived after 5 p.m. The seagulls were very close to people, and the crowds were much smaller than at Dianchi Lake. But don't assume 'much smaller' means no one or just a few—after all, it was peak season. During our visit, the metasequoia trees had lost some of their red color, but with the sunshine, they were still stunning. The internet-famous forest boating—well, as I said, peak season means crowds, and the small water area was packed with little boats. My kid was timid and didn't want to try, so we skipped it. But that didn't dampen my fondness for this wetland park.

After all, it's peak season. When you travel, if you lower your expectations a bit, everything becomes the best arrangement, and your experience will feel much better.