Today was our last in Yangshuo as we were on the train to Kunming. We decided to have a look round the town as we hadn't seen much of it. Given we had lots to buy for the train trip, this turned into a shopping trip. We paid a quick visit to the local market - the vegetables looked good and we could identify most of what we had been eating. The fish and meat section was not so pleasant - lots of live chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits and a few dogs - some were in the process of being butchered. Fran wouldn't walk over to this section! The fish section had lots of fish being gutted plus eels - these are a local delicacy. In the afternoon, it was on the bus for an hour's ride to Guillin. From there it was on the train for 18 hours to Kunming.We slept well on the train and had breakfast looking over some spectacular mountain scenery. We arrived in Kunming about 11:30. Our first job was to sort out the visa for Vietnam. We found the consulate and it was all quite painless - if a little expensive. (£40 for each visa). We then could organise the train to Dali (our next stop) and check in to our hotel. After all of this, we decided on a trip round the city to see the sights, Unfortunately, it was a pretty normal large Chinese city (about 4 million people) - the only highlight was the flower and bird market - which had no birds and 1 flower seller but lots of other stuff. As we are nearer the border here, there was stuff from Vietnam, Thailand and Myramar as well as things from the minority groups in the area. The highlight for me were the stalls washing & dying peoples hair promising that their hair would remain black.The next day we had a wait for visas and the train so we decided to go out to Kunming's beauty spot - the western hills and Dian lake. We had a slow start. Following the guide books instructions, we had a long walk to where the minibuses went from. The next delay was that we couldn't find a minibus going there. By this time it had started to rain and we were getting hacked off. We went to plan B - take a regular bus and change - this worked fine. The lake is enormous - 40 miles long with some pretty hills around them. We caught a chair lift up the mountain to the famous part - some temples that have been cut into the cliff overlooking the lake. The walk was along lots of steps (mostly down) cut into the cliff with views over the lake. Unfortunately it was still drizzling - it would have looked lovely on a sunny day. After this, we decided to head back to town as we needed to pick up our passports. So we reversed the journey - minibus and regular bus. We picked up the passports complete with Vietnam visas and then had a leisurely dinner whilst we waited to get the night train to Dali.