Dali by bus · Dali by bus
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Dali by bus
Dali by bus
Buses from Kunming West Bus Station take about 4,5 hours and cost 100 yuan for an ordinary bus and around 130 yuan for an express luxury bus, and will bring you to Xiaguan (Dali New City). Some buses go to Dali, too, so check with the driver. In Xiaguan, there are three different bus stations, to reach the train station, go east along Jianshe Lu and Dianyuan Lu. From Xiaguan Train Station (in Dali New Town) you can take bus 8 and bus 4 (1.5 yuan, 20 minutes) to Dali Old Town 13 km to the north (Bus 4 also runs through the town). It's also possible to catch a white mini-bus on Jianshe Lu that run between Xiaguan and Dali, there's usually a white sign displayed inside the front wind shield that reads (大理<->下关) in Chinese. The cost for the mini-bus is 3 yuan per person. Taxi fare between Xiaguan and Dali should be around 40 yuan.
If the expressway is closed or under construction the bus may opt for the more scenic route akin to the notorious "road of death" in Bolivia, though paved.
Buses coming south from Lijiang are about 60-80 yuan and stop outside the old town, from where it is possible to get a taxi or walk to the main guesthouses. You can save about 20 yuan on the Lijiang bus by simply hailing one on the highway east of the old town.
There is a bus service to Xiaguan from Jinghong, Xishuangbanna province, which has buses running at 17:00 and 21:30, possibly earlier too. The ticket price was 195 yuan and the journey was about 17 hours. The bus used on this route is a sleeper bus so you get a fairly comfortably bed and a blanket. This service may be useful for people who have arrived in China from northern Laos, e.g. Luang Namtha.
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Dali Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.