Hai Tian Kunming

... a couple of shacks and a muddy pathway....welcome to LAOS!<br>Our visa was easy - a couple of forms, 35USD for Amy 30USD for Tom (Latvia pays less because they are less wealthy than the UK - maybe?!) and 2USD border fee. This gives us a 30 day single entry visa (despite the guide book stating that we can only get 15 day visas here!)<br>Our coach continues through Laos and the scenery is breathtaking. We drive around the edge of hillsides and dotted along the road ...

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... who has devoted himself to the preservation and spread of Naxi traditional music, as a model. "He made a perfect combination of arts and business. His band is learning and teaching traditional skills while performing commercially." Sometimes, after finishing painting, he sits at a small desk on the balcony of the 17th floor, looking out at the city, to write down his life with a China-made ink pen and a notebook. He disdains computers, especially the ...

... half an hour, we were exhausted and out of breath and kept telling the lady that it's too far, but she was pushy and somehow we ended up viewing it. Despite being told it was fully furnished we arrived to see one lonely chair in an otherwise empty and enormous lounge. We feel a pressure to find an apartment so that we can move out of the hump, it's just too cold.

... memory is almost never reality. However, while gulping down the dregs of our overly brewed coffee we were approached by an apprehensive Chinese tourist wanting to know where the bathroom was. I have now been mistaken for an employee of a Chinese McDonalds. Still confused by the aforementioned bizarre episode Christa and I took to wondering the streets of Kunming where we ducked into several small gardens and parks ...

... of the Chinese and the number of dints and scratches that most cars round here have, I'm not sure why it's worth taking the chance of putting your prize possession amongst a stream of deranged drivers with minimal understanding of the concept of lanes and traffic lights and a vastly over-inflated view of the importance of the horn. Still, for the time being he is definitely succesfully demonstrating that he has really ...

... and worldly human, minimizing materialism and being cognizant of spiritual well-being/happiness, doing random acts of kindness and keeping face versus having courage in adversity (they recounted a Chinese moral about being a hero even if it means death versus being a coward and surviving). Fascinating. This day also rekindled my life of educating - whether in a formal classroom or outside - and further endorsed my respect for teachers. Arturo, and the other ...

... but as the performance wore on he obviously decided that actually waiting for the breaks was unecessary and instead took to playing with a cigarette constantly hanging from his lips. There was also one old man playing a violin who seemed a bit more proficient. However as the sun kept moving round he kept retreating further round the side of the temple to stay in the shade, so he seemed to end up doing totally his own thing. The dancers were much more ...

... rip me off...about 7 women charged off the bus and started hitting and spitting on the guy. Sweet revenge! Overland border crossings are sometimes like this - the locals are used to dumbass travellers crossing the border without a clue. A few got me, but I only lost ~$2USD in total. <br><br>So I've arrived in Kunming, the largest city in Yunnan province and it is a thoroughly modern affair with skyscrapers and boulevards. It's an Atlanta-sized city with nearly 4 ...