Not gone quite yet
Hi,
We are still able to get to computers, now in Kunming. Getting here was a bit more difficult than planned. The train from Guilin was fully booked, unlike what we were told would be the case in Yangshuo. So, we decided to talk to a travel agent. He suggested that we take the bus to Nanning then take the train from there. He assured us that there were four trains daily (contrary to what our guide book said). We had to wait about 9 hours for our bus, so we walked around the city for a while. There wasn't much to see in the section we were in, so we went down to the river to just sit and wait for the restaurants to open (about 4 hours). Unfortunately, while we were walking around it started pouring rain, so we found seats by the river under a tree and stayed relatively dry (under umbrellas) but very cold.
We had dinner at a place recommended in the guide book, a very good Sizhuan restaurant. It was one of the few places on the street that did not have caged pheasant, chickens, ducks, bamboo rats, snakes, turtles and fish in front of it. We ordered spicy dishes (a mistake we realized when we were served a package of tissues) and struggled to eat them despite how good they tasted. For desert we had sweet dumplings. Strange gooey purple balls stuffed with very tasty peanut butter.
It was still raining when we got to the bus. We arrived in Nanning around 2:30 am expecting to catch a 6AM train. Well, there aren't 4 trains like we had been told, only the one the guide book said, at 6:10PM. Adding to our troubles we had to wait until 5AM to buy the tickets. We ended up sitting outside in the single digit degrees C barely sheltered from the rain in front of the train station. We bought our tickets at 5 and then decided to get a hotel room for the day since we hadn't slept on the bus.
We woke up around noon and went out to find a computer so we could tell our hotel that we would be arriving a day late. We tried to follow the instructions in the guide book to the nearest Internet, but all we could find was a computer store. They were nice enough to let us use the computers there though to send of an email. The connection was slow but it got done.
We wanted lunch but the only place recommended in the guide book that was near us was the Canine Cuisine District. Instead we grabbed some snacks at a grocery store (two floors below the computer store). We ate our snacks back at our hotel room and then headed off for the train around 4:30. It boarded 30 minutes early, so our wait wasn't too bad at all. For dinner we had instant noodles, but far better than what we have at home (3 packets of flavouring and many more noodles). The train ride took 14 hours. According to the guide book nearly 300km of the 900km trip is spent either on bridges or in tunnels. We got some sleep, although it wasn't the best (hard class sleepers are called that for a reason).
Our arrival in Kunming was uneventful but early. We ended up having to wait for an hour or so for our room when we arrived at the hotel. Our room is very nice for $20 a night (too bad we only get one night here because of the mix up with the train).
After we showered we headed out for breakfast and money. We had an unusual breakfast exhibiting the stereotypes placed on westerners. First of all it was called a western breakfast. It came with toast, eggs, salad, jam and cheese. I'm not sure where the salad stereotype comes from, butIguess its often repeated here, they think we all want to eat it for breakfast. Our cheese came toasted on our toast and was very good, but made the jam somewhat undesirable.
As we walked towards the bank we started to see something unusual about Kunming. It seems that every few shops is a small outdoors gear shop (like EMS or REI but smaller). Over the course of the day we must have passed 50 shops. They sell all the best gear from around the world (and its all genuine too, unlike the Kromani Apparel or the shoes with an upside down swoosh). This city seems to be a setting off point for adventure, that is my only explanation.
But not only is there an excess of shops like these, there also seems to be many other types of sporting goods shops as well. They sell martial arts gear, tennis gear, basket balls, gym equipment, and everything else you might expect. These shops were densely packed in pockets around the city...very strange.
We decided to go to the Bamboo Temple, a very old Buddhist temple that has been rebuilt several times over the years. One of the recent additions was 500 statues of men in various "snapshot" poses.Iwill tell more about this in person, but the statues were all different, and all very lifelike although some of the men themselves were quite surreal (one man was opening a hole in his chest to reveal a Buddha). Others were very real, to a point that the realism itself was almost surreal.Ihaven't mentioned this yetIdon't think, but the swastika is a pattern that shows up quite often here. In this case it was on the chest of some of the Buddhas. This has no association with the Nazis at all, simply an old symbol of religious significance.
After the temple we came back to Kunming and set out trying to find a shop we had read about. It was very hard to find but we did get there, and found exactly what we had been looking for for days in China.
Next we set off to find the Yunnan University, which was easier than finding the shop. It was an interesting campus that reminded me quite a bit of the WPI campus really. It was easy to project what we knew onto what we saw, there were correlates to most of what we were familiar with at Northeastern (Student center, wallastons like shop, bookstore, etc.)
I decided to have some street food (the real stuff, somethingIhaven't really tried yet).Istopped at a Muslim food stall, they were grilling flat breads that looked very tasty soIordered one.Idid not realize that it would take several minutes for them to prepare the full dish. What they made was egg and sausage (very similar to hotdog) they mixed this all together with cumin and green onions then stuffed the bread with it; topping it all off with a spicy chilli sauce. It was great. However....
BeforeIgo further,Iwill point out that Kunming is supposed to be one of the safest cities in China. All banks are guarded. Many corners have soldiers, and police patrol the streets regularly. Crime is very low. There is also a large Muslim population here, but except for some trouble in the distant past it is very peaceful now.
The reasonImention this is because we did end up seeing a true street fight while my food was being made. The altercation occurred between some men (i think from the university) and the people at one of the other food stalls. We became aware of the problem when the students knocked over the food stall run by a man and a woman. The man who ran the stall put it back to gather some then started walking towards the students with a small cleaver while they were yelling at him the whole time. The woman picked up the cash that had spilled on the ground and continued fixing the stall. The fight was mostly based around intimidation, and no attempts to punch or kick were made. After some pushing the man with the cleaver got behind one of the students (the main instigator) and put him in a headlock from behind (Somewhere along the way he lost his cleaver though). At this pointIwas looking for the guardIhad seen only feet away at the university gate (he was nowhere to be seen). The shop owner threw the student on the ground, which involved more people int the fight. More pushing and intimidation followed. People came in and dropped out (there were always between 3 and 5 people involved). The fight roamed around the street for a while then made its way back to the other food sellers. At this point the main student instigator grabbed a cleaver from one of the other stalls but the owner grabbed it back (this was two stalls away). Our food was finally finished and we paid and stepped back. Though our cook was not involving herself in the fight she did end up getting pushed (still no police in sight). It did not seem to be escalating, and all the knives were dropped. We decided, though, that it would be best if we got out of there (which we did).
We explored quite a bit more after this. We found a very strange market called the Bird and Flower market in English. Here they sold everything from sniper scopes to puppies, flutes to "Conan the Barbarian" swords. If you wanted you could prepare yourself for a medieval battle, buy everything a cop might carry, learn to play a bamboo flute, get ready for an expedition to Everest, or build your own aquarium.
After the market (whichIreally wishIcould talk more about),Igrabbed some Kebabs (more Muslim food) in the street...again lots of pepper and cumin, very good food. We walked the 2 miles or so back to our hotel and that brings us to now...almost. Outside our hotel were fully armored (Kevlar from head to toe) guards carrying assault shotguns. Their post was an armored vehicle, probably there to collect money from the bank down the alley way.
Despite any shocking information about KunmingIhave given here, it is still my favorite place in china outside hong kong. No one has tried to scam us yet, the police haven't yelled at us yet, and although it is cold (about 6 C) its not pouring rain.
-Tim
PS We take a bus very close to the lao border tomorrow. That will take 17 hours (in a sleeper). We will spend a night there then go to Laos early the next morning.
We are still able to get to computers, now in Kunming. Getting here was a bit more difficult than planned. The train from Guilin was fully booked, unlike what we were told would be the case in Yangshuo. So, we decided to talk to a travel agent. He suggested that we take the bus to Nanning then take the train from there. He assured us that there were four trains daily (contrary to what our guide book said). We had to wait about 9 hours for our bus, so we walked around the city for a while. There wasn't much to see in the section we were in, so we went down to the river to just sit and wait for the restaurants to open (about 4 hours). Unfortunately, while we were walking around it started pouring rain, so we found seats by the river under a tree and stayed relatively dry (under umbrellas) but very cold.
We had dinner at a place recommended in the guide book, a very good Sizhuan restaurant. It was one of the few places on the street that did not have caged pheasant, chickens, ducks, bamboo rats, snakes, turtles and fish in front of it. We ordered spicy dishes (a mistake we realized when we were served a package of tissues) and struggled to eat them despite how good they tasted. For desert we had sweet dumplings. Strange gooey purple balls stuffed with very tasty peanut butter.
It was still raining when we got to the bus. We arrived in Nanning around 2:30 am expecting to catch a 6AM train. Well, there aren't 4 trains like we had been told, only the one the guide book said, at 6:10PM. Adding to our troubles we had to wait until 5AM to buy the tickets. We ended up sitting outside in the single digit degrees C barely sheltered from the rain in front of the train station. We bought our tickets at 5 and then decided to get a hotel room for the day since we hadn't slept on the bus.
We woke up around noon and went out to find a computer so we could tell our hotel that we would be arriving a day late. We tried to follow the instructions in the guide book to the nearest Internet, but all we could find was a computer store. They were nice enough to let us use the computers there though to send of an email. The connection was slow but it got done.
We wanted lunch but the only place recommended in the guide book that was near us was the Canine Cuisine District. Instead we grabbed some snacks at a grocery store (two floors below the computer store). We ate our snacks back at our hotel room and then headed off for the train around 4:30. It boarded 30 minutes early, so our wait wasn't too bad at all. For dinner we had instant noodles, but far better than what we have at home (3 packets of flavouring and many more noodles). The train ride took 14 hours. According to the guide book nearly 300km of the 900km trip is spent either on bridges or in tunnels. We got some sleep, although it wasn't the best (hard class sleepers are called that for a reason).
Our arrival in Kunming was uneventful but early. We ended up having to wait for an hour or so for our room when we arrived at the hotel. Our room is very nice for $20 a night (too bad we only get one night here because of the mix up with the train).
After we showered we headed out for breakfast and money. We had an unusual breakfast exhibiting the stereotypes placed on westerners. First of all it was called a western breakfast. It came with toast, eggs, salad, jam and cheese. I'm not sure where the salad stereotype comes from, butIguess its often repeated here, they think we all want to eat it for breakfast. Our cheese came toasted on our toast and was very good, but made the jam somewhat undesirable.
As we walked towards the bank we started to see something unusual about Kunming. It seems that every few shops is a small outdoors gear shop (like EMS or REI but smaller). Over the course of the day we must have passed 50 shops. They sell all the best gear from around the world (and its all genuine too, unlike the Kromani Apparel or the shoes with an upside down swoosh). This city seems to be a setting off point for adventure, that is my only explanation.
But not only is there an excess of shops like these, there also seems to be many other types of sporting goods shops as well. They sell martial arts gear, tennis gear, basket balls, gym equipment, and everything else you might expect. These shops were densely packed in pockets around the city...very strange.
We decided to go to the Bamboo Temple, a very old Buddhist temple that has been rebuilt several times over the years. One of the recent additions was 500 statues of men in various "snapshot" poses.Iwill tell more about this in person, but the statues were all different, and all very lifelike although some of the men themselves were quite surreal (one man was opening a hole in his chest to reveal a Buddha). Others were very real, to a point that the realism itself was almost surreal.Ihaven't mentioned this yetIdon't think, but the swastika is a pattern that shows up quite often here. In this case it was on the chest of some of the Buddhas. This has no association with the Nazis at all, simply an old symbol of religious significance.
After the temple we came back to Kunming and set out trying to find a shop we had read about. It was very hard to find but we did get there, and found exactly what we had been looking for for days in China.
Next we set off to find the Yunnan University, which was easier than finding the shop. It was an interesting campus that reminded me quite a bit of the WPI campus really. It was easy to project what we knew onto what we saw, there were correlates to most of what we were familiar with at Northeastern (Student center, wallastons like shop, bookstore, etc.)
I decided to have some street food (the real stuff, somethingIhaven't really tried yet).Istopped at a Muslim food stall, they were grilling flat breads that looked very tasty soIordered one.Idid not realize that it would take several minutes for them to prepare the full dish. What they made was egg and sausage (very similar to hotdog) they mixed this all together with cumin and green onions then stuffed the bread with it; topping it all off with a spicy chilli sauce. It was great. However....
BeforeIgo further,Iwill point out that Kunming is supposed to be one of the safest cities in China. All banks are guarded. Many corners have soldiers, and police patrol the streets regularly. Crime is very low. There is also a large Muslim population here, but except for some trouble in the distant past it is very peaceful now.
The reasonImention this is because we did end up seeing a true street fight while my food was being made. The altercation occurred between some men (i think from the university) and the people at one of the other food stalls. We became aware of the problem when the students knocked over the food stall run by a man and a woman. The man who ran the stall put it back to gather some then started walking towards the students with a small cleaver while they were yelling at him the whole time. The woman picked up the cash that had spilled on the ground and continued fixing the stall. The fight was mostly based around intimidation, and no attempts to punch or kick were made. After some pushing the man with the cleaver got behind one of the students (the main instigator) and put him in a headlock from behind (Somewhere along the way he lost his cleaver though). At this pointIwas looking for the guardIhad seen only feet away at the university gate (he was nowhere to be seen). The shop owner threw the student on the ground, which involved more people int the fight. More pushing and intimidation followed. People came in and dropped out (there were always between 3 and 5 people involved). The fight roamed around the street for a while then made its way back to the other food sellers. At this point the main student instigator grabbed a cleaver from one of the other stalls but the owner grabbed it back (this was two stalls away). Our food was finally finished and we paid and stepped back. Though our cook was not involving herself in the fight she did end up getting pushed (still no police in sight). It did not seem to be escalating, and all the knives were dropped. We decided, though, that it would be best if we got out of there (which we did).
We explored quite a bit more after this. We found a very strange market called the Bird and Flower market in English. Here they sold everything from sniper scopes to puppies, flutes to "Conan the Barbarian" swords. If you wanted you could prepare yourself for a medieval battle, buy everything a cop might carry, learn to play a bamboo flute, get ready for an expedition to Everest, or build your own aquarium.
After the market (whichIreally wishIcould talk more about),Igrabbed some Kebabs (more Muslim food) in the street...again lots of pepper and cumin, very good food. We walked the 2 miles or so back to our hotel and that brings us to now...almost. Outside our hotel were fully armored (Kevlar from head to toe) guards carrying assault shotguns. Their post was an armored vehicle, probably there to collect money from the bank down the alley way.
Despite any shocking information about KunmingIhave given here, it is still my favorite place in china outside hong kong. No one has tried to scam us yet, the police haven't yelled at us yet, and although it is cold (about 6 C) its not pouring rain.
-Tim
PS We take a bus very close to the lao border tomorrow. That will take 17 hours (in a sleeper). We will spend a night there then go to Laos early the next morning.
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on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 5:21 AM.
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1:57 PMOh wow --- did I have feelings for you guys --- huddled in the cold rain --- in a foreign country --- in the middle of the night --- tired --- hungry and miserable --- but then I realized you have become more worldly for it --- likely stronger for it --- and it wasn’t actually as bad as what the two previous generations often faced in Asia --- no one was shooting at you --- and there were no booby traps ---
Your travel accounts are fascinating --- keep them coming --- and continue to be safe ---
Dad – H
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