Kunming
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
5
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Kunming,
Yunnan,
China
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
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Tanya and I hugged and parted at the airport, she for Hong Kong and me for Kunming, both happy not to have had our plans to escape Wuhan thwarted, yet again, by snow.
I had expected Kunming to be much like any other Chinese city I have been to. Big, crowded, busy and terribly polluted. Instead I got off the plane and was stunned by disgustingly cheerful blue skies and a plethora of cute little pansies that fluttered their little petals at me everywhere I looked. To tell the truth it was hard to look at anything at all. After so many weeks of pale or no sunlight and seeing everything in various shades of white, black or a mushy mix of slush, all the sunshine and vibrant colours were shocking and very nearly blinded me. Sadly the excess sunshine also scorched my skin. There was such a distinct lack of sunshine in Wuhan when I left, that it never occured to me to pack sunscreen. Instead, I brought lots of thermals which, in retrospect, is laughable, but also quite sad. Oh and the air! The air was so fresh in comparison, the excess oxygen had me just about bouncing off of walls.
After I ditched my pack in my room, I flung myself out of the hotel and onto the streets. I like Kunming. It is relaxed and has bright blue skies and is warm in the middle of winter. It has vegetables too (perhaps this sounds odd, but Wuhan had a shortage of vegetables during the insane snow blitz... thank goodness I'm not a vegetarian anymore or I'd have starved) snacks different from those in Wuhan and a couple of touristy sights to boot. Although, speaking of sights, this leads me to the three slightly shitty things that happened.
I got severely lost trying to walk to some specky temple with a gold roof. I assume either the directions or the distances listed in the LG (Let's Go China) were stuffed (it wouldn't be the first time) because I walked until I was almost limping before deciding I'd had enough and turned back. I'm surprisingly good at following directions when I actually decide to follow them (which I will be the first to admit is not very often at all) but the LG China has failed me almost as much as the LP Korea did in that I have gotten lost almost every single time I have made the mistake of bothering to refer to it. Fortunately, unlike that time in Korea, I have yet to be chased out of anywhere by shouting monks, which is a distinct improvement. The point is, it was a good thing I'd decided to go to the metallic roof thing for the sake of a good walk and not because I was actually interested in the place or else I'd have been really ticked off.
Earlier in the day, I saw a thing of perfection. A whole row of big, fat, juicy strawberries on a skewer covered in toffee. I bought it and was half way through my first strawberry when a little street kid started tugging at my sweater, one hand raised towards my strawberries. I was at a loss for what to do... part with the stick, like the big softy I am (well, actually more because I would have felt like an arsehole for depriving a little kid of a stick of toffee strawberries, you know... rich foreigner refuses hungry orphan sweet treat or other such nastiness... hyperactive guilt reflex, that's what it is... although it would have made me cry to part with that stick because the strawberries were so damn good...and nobody ever bothers to think about it like that do they?! nasty little starving orphan guilt-trips poor Australian into giving away beautiful strawberry skewer which said foreigner was completely enamored with, etc.), give her 3 kuai so she could get her own, or ignore her (I confess my knuckles did tighten around the skewer at the sight of her, so as you can guess the third option was quite tempting) . While I was frozen by indecision, I was suddenly surrounded by a mob of little street kids reaching for my strawberries. Certain I had neither enough strawberries or money for option 1 or 2, I ran for it.
It was scandalous! Picture this if you will...foreigner running down a pedestrian mall, toffee covered strawberries brandished above her head, with a hoard of waist-height, grubby, hungry looking little Chinese Oliver Twists sans hats trailing behind her. It was most undignified and probably much talked of by the people who had been hanging out in the mall. Foreigners tend to attract a lot of attention in this country without making spectacles of themselves. As payback for my scrooge-like behaviour, my coat got covered in little drops of toffee (that's why it was so good, the toffee wasn't even hard yet!) But it sounds like I got off easy. An Aussie I met in Dali said she was followed from shop to shop by a little girl who also tugged on he sweater. Afterwards she realised the kid had swiped her wallet.
After being chased through Kunming by street kids and then getting lost on the way to the temple I was so tired I fell straight alseep after a bath despite the racket going on outside (Chinese New Year generally sounds like a warzone with all the firecrackers and drums). Perhaps I shouldn't have turned on the electic blanket. Kunming's weather doesn't require it. But because in Wuhan I generally fall asleep in a shivering little ball under my 2 quilts, on top of my heater, the idea of roasting in my sleep was strangely appealing. The combination of a hot bath and then sleeping with an electric blanket on totally fried my brain. I was super groggy the next morning. I sat down for breakfast and zoned out for 15 minutes watching a really loud and obnoxious Chinese New Year special, waiting for someone to take my order. Just as I was about to yell at one of the staff, it occured to me that I could hear the guy sitting behind me sloppily munching on his breakfast like a pig, despite the fact that he had arrived after me and nobody had taken his order either. I turned around and discovered a huge buffet had miraculously appeared behind me. Not sure how I missed it, as it was big enough for me to see, short-sighted or not. I blame the electric blanket!
