After the delicious breakfast, we went to the costume rental/studio for our appointment and picked our costumes. My daughter wanted the white dress so I had to match with her; I was trying to persuade her to the blue one. My son loves red so he picked the red outfit. Those costumes were very easy to put in; right on top of our clothes. Then, the staff helped us to put on the extravagant crowns, I was surprised that those were actually very light. We were ready to go, the photographer took us around the resort for our 1-hour photoshoot, he said it’s not possible to go outside the resort 🙁 However, there are many photogenic spots around the resort. Here are some of our photos: some were taken from Jason with our own camera and some from the photographer (heavily photoshopped ones). We got 10 free photos and ended up purchasing an additional 10 for 600 CNY.
After the photoshoot, we took Didi to Baisha Ancient Town (白沙古镇) but on the way, the driver highly recommended Yuhu Village (玉湖村) so we changed the destination to there to check it out. Once arrived, there’s a visitor center to learn about Yuhu Village visiting routes and ticket prices. They offer different routes where you can take a shuttle bus to one location and then a horse ride to the lake and back to the village via shuttle; that one requires 3 hours and quite costly (168 RMB if I remember correctly). As it was already 11:30 AM, the kids need to eat lunch, I asked if we can visit the village first and then the horse ride, the staff said no. Therefore, we purchased the ticket to the village only.
The shuttle bus station is located behind the visitor center, it waits till it fills up with tourists:
It was a 10-minute or so ride up the hill to the parking lot located at the entrance of the village (one main road). The village looked different than other ancient towns around the area, their houses were built with stone instead of wood!
Before heading up, I searched Dianping for restaurants and found one that is next to the parking lot with good ratings. The restaurant is inside a beautiful homestay:
We were seated upstairs and we were the only guests….urg! It turned out great food, the vegetables were fresh and flavorful.
The best dish was the steamed snow mountain fish, the meat was so tender! It was the best fish we had in Yunnan!
The fried eggs with flowers were good too, our kids love that dish.
The stir-fried beef was tender and flavorful, although, a little bit spicy for the kids.
After lunch and use their restrooms (they have squat toilets only), we walked up to check out the village. As you can see the Jade Dragon Mountain range in the background. There’s one main street filled with cafes, restaurants, homestays, and surprisingly not many shops!
What annoyed me the most was we had to look out for cars constantly driving up and down the main road! They should make this main road pedestrian-only, at least at certain hours of the day. There’s no point for shuttle bus but also allowing some cars to drive all the way up!
This tiny village is heavily commercialized too with cafes built to be Instagram-worthy like this one:
We reached the end of the main road. You can walk from the parking lot to the end of the main road in less than 10 minutes, that was how small this village is. With a few stops for photos and watching out for cars, it took like 30 minutes. Although the village looked different and nice, I don’t think it was worth the ticket price (39 CNY for the shuttle).
We walked back down to the parking lot, waited for the next shuttle bus to get back to the visitor center and then ordered Didi to go to Baisha Ancient Town (白沙古镇). At the entrance of Baisha Ancient Town is the famous Baisha Mural Paintings. We purchased the ticket (only 30 CNY) and walked in.
The complex has a few houses and temples.
First, we visited the house that the famous mural painting is located, no photo allowed inside to protect the ancient painting.
Here’s a picture of the picture of the mural painting:
The colors of the actual painting was as vivid given that was from over 500 years ago!!! Other buildings in the complex:
A wooden pagoda:
A peaceful path to the temple:
A scholar temple:
It was a nice short visit to the Baisha Mural Paintings and they have a sitting toilet!!! After that, we walked into the ancient town to check it out. This colorful artificial “cave” is actually an entrance to a gift shop!
It was a lot busier in Baisha since it was in the afternoon.
We went up to a “museum” that advertised free views of the Snow Dragon Mountain for free…..they have a coffee shop on the top floor with the views but through the glass windows:
Whereas, coffee/tea shops that have views often charge a fee or require a purchase…outrageously expensive coffee/tea; this one charges a minimum of 100 CNY for a pot of tea! Look at how crazy tourists climb the rooftop for Instagram photos/Tiktok videos!!!
Lots and lots of tourists:
You can find some peace on side streets but not much to see/explore here.
At Baisha, you can see the Jade Dragon Mountain range here too!
It was time for boba tea LOL!
The sky started to get gloomy, so we decided to leave before it rained! It was so busy that no driver picked up our Didi order urg! There were vans advertising back to Lijiang Ancient Town so we asked about the price and got on; I was being cautious so I opened the GPS and tracked our route to make sure. We got back to our hotel safely 🙂
Luckily, it started to rain after we got back to our hotel! We took a break and then headed out for dinner at 滇山雪鱼 as it was wet outside, we picked the closest one near our hotel. Their menu with similar Yunnan local dishes:
The tofu with crab yolk was great for the kids as it was not spicy and silky in texture:
The stir-fried veggy with mushroom was okay:
Chestnuts and pork stew was flavorful:
The best was their house-famous sour fish, it was spicy and great, it tasted like Thai-style.
After dinner, we checked out Zhongyi Market (忠义市场) again, I didn’t go last time as I was rushing back to the hotel with my son to go to the bathroom.
A lot of food stalls and dried mushroom products:
And bugs….
Overall, I don’t recommend Yuhu Village (玉湖村) unless you do the full horse ride to the lake which we didn’t but for a quick visit, it wasn’t that interesting. Baisha Old Town (白沙古镇) was very touristy; perhaps we went there in the afternoon so it wasn’t as enjoyable as Shuhe Ancient Town (束河古镇).
