The Capital of Yunnan province

Our train arrived about an hour early, the first thing we noticed that it was noticeably colder - after all Kunming is located at an altitude of 1900metres above sea level. We were very lucky to see someone waiting with a sign from "the Hump" hostel, we had read about it this place and seemed good, so we asked the man if he could show us the way, and he said fine, so we made our way by bus to the hostel. On the way we chatted to Michael, an Irish guy, (who the guy had actually been waiting for).

Eating again

The hostel was really nice, lots of  good facilties like a table tennis table (jon won eventually in a decisive game of three),  a pool table and internet (though you always had to wait). After settling into to room (which provided ear plugs as the there were many loud Chinese nightclubs in the area which would disrupt anyone's sleep which their loud raucous music), we took a walk around the local area. There are some really good street food stalls around the centre of Kunming, they are selling various different types of meat to be barbecued with a spicy sauce - lamb, pork, bacon, even  chicken feet for the more adventuruously inclined. Also they had some delicious roast potatoes, which come with a spicy chilli sauce to be poured over. On our second visit to this street with all the food stalls, we saw a strange incident that had over 50 Chinese (and us) gawping to find out what was going on. There was a young woman who was consistently kicking another lady's food stall -we had no idea why obviously , they were all shouting in Chinese. The stall holder was understandbly a little upset to say the least and she was screaming like a banshee at the vandal. This whole thing went on for about 10 minutes  -the stallholder had to be restrained from attacking the woman with a weapon - the strange thing was that throughout the course of the whole incident the police just stood 30 metres away watching what was going on and not intervening. Obviously the police here operate a more "hands off" approach.

Friends from tibet

Kunming's speciality food is "across the bridge noodles" and we were lucky enough to find a restuarant that specialises in them just next door to the hump. After a couple of drinks in the evening, we tried them  - basically it consists of a large bowl of soup which has a layer of oil floating on the top, and in which various meats (or fish) have been cooked. Both of us did not think it was amazing - all the meat was quite soggy, and the soup was way too big. Afterwards, we had a few more drinks at the Hump bar, whilst chatting to various people, including some Tibetan guys.

The next day we did n't do that much - we got up late and caught up on some emails. We were  shocked to receive emails from Daniella's mum and brother about an earthquake in China, at that point we had n't heard anything of any earthquake. We looked on BBC news and saw there had been a massive earthquake in Sichuan province. We did n't feel any tremors in Kunming, but apparently the tremors had been felt much further away than we were from the epicentre, in Bangkok and Hanoi.

noodles over the bridge with micheal

We had a dinner in a traditional restuarant specialising in the cuisine of Sichuan province. The food was delicious, Particuarly the pork ribs (and we thing there was also a pig's hoof in there which Daniella ate) with chillis.

Our next stop is Dali, which is 5 hours to the northwest by bus and we leave at 11am tommorrow.  

Our piglet

street food

Tea buying

Town