Apr 27, Monday, Shangri-La

So the Travel Weather Gods are laughing again today.  The day dawned sunny and clear with beautiful blue skies, white clouds and clear views of the snow-capped mountains that surround the valley.  Of course, we are flying out mid-day today so won’t be able to do any country driving to see the mountains better.

The street lights at the airport were rather interesting - looked like Black-necked cranes.

The airport here is pretty small with just 7 gates.  We got to the airport early, thinking to get through ticketing and security and just relax in the gate area.  However, there was no one at the ticket counters or security for another 45 minutes so we waited in the main (very empty) terminal. 

Mary tried her hand at taking pictures of the China countryside from the airplane window. Some actually turned out.

Mountains around Shangri-La

These are probably greenhouses.

The flight to Kunming was pretty uneventful but trying to make our connection was a bit of an effort.  First, the airport is gigantic and it must have taken us at least 20 minutes to walk from the gate to luggage claim.  After picking up the luggage we had to go up to the China Southern gate to check in for the next leg of our flight.  This time it was Mary who had issues…they didn’t have a reservation for her.  It got sorted out; we checked in and made it to Guilin with no other issues.

The drive from the airport to our hotel was relatively long and took us through some lovely sections of town and passed many beautiful karst mountains for which the area is well known.  We must have been tired or asleep...no pictures.