Smokin', Spittin, and Slurpin'
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2005
1
61
149
Trip End
Ongoing
Kunming,
China
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Our train was delayed about forty minutes, time which we made use of by striking up a conversation with the only other white people in the station. They were a German couple, the same age as us, one was also a vegetarian, and they'd been in China since September, so we were able to get a lot of good tips and whatnot from them. It turned out they were in the same carriage as we were, one bunk over, so we were able to chat with them for a good chunk of the trip (as well as the following days in Kunming).
Chinese trains are different than any other trains either of us have been on before. They are very narrow, with the beds on one side and an aisle to walk with small fold-down chairs on the other side. The bunks are six to a berth (three high), and they don't fold up or down, so for the non-sleeping hours, you must either sit on the bottom bunk or try and snag one of the aforementioned fold-down chairs in the aisle.
This train trip was our first lengthy Chinese immersion experience, and it was eye-opening. No matter how much you read about something, you still are unprepared for the real deal: so it was with the Chinese. I had read about their smoking and their spitting, but until we were forced into small quarters with them for twenty hours, we hadn't really understood how often these activities occurred.
Like I said, I had read that the Chinese were avid smokers, and they often smoked on trains and buses. But we were coming from a year in Vietnam, a country which purportedly has the largest percentage of male smokers in the world, so we were ready for it.
Building Gates
And our time in the cities and on our short train rides, seemed to be about the same as Vietnam: lots of people were smoking -- but it wasn't overwhelming. I guess we had just been lucky, because once we were on the train, it was "smoke 'em if you got 'em" all the way to Kunming. It's illegal to smoke in the actual berths now, but people can smoke in between cars, and there are no doors to separate them from the car, so the smoke is omnipresent. I was woken numerous times by the oppressive odor, and our clothes reeked by the time we disembarked. The German woman we met on the train told us that Mao was a very heavy smoker, and since he is worshiped as a near god in China, the people here all smoke heavily too. I don't know if that's the case or not, but the smoking hasn't stopped and is damn near driving me out of the country.And then there's the spitting. People spit in every country in the world (okay, maybe not Singapore?), but the Chinese take it to a new, Olympic-record level. The sound of "hock (pause) spit" can be heard pretty much constantly when out in public. And the spitting isn't just limited to the outdoors, where people spit on the street and on the sidewalk -- it also goes on indoors: on store floors, on carpeted train floors, etc. It too is grating on one's nerves (I'm sure many people learn to tune it out. I haven't mastered that yet). I remember reading a few years ago that the government was trying to put a stop to this behavior in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics. Apparently they haven't made too much headway yet.
And, finally, slurping. The Chinese are the noisiest eaters I believe I've ever encountered. It doesn't matter if they're eating noodles or meat or soup or pizza or rice -- they make a damn lot of noise doing it! Anyhow, those were some typical Chinese behaviors we had noticed during our time in China, but were then made more evident during our train ride between Guilin and Kunming.
Colorful Bamboo
We arrived in Kunming and hopped in a taxi (they're so freaking cheap here!) with our new German friends and set off for a hotel that I had been recommended. The hotel was nice, and fit reasonably within our budget, so we settled in, grabbed some grub, and napped (not too much sleeping went on during the train ride).
Kunming is a city of nearly 6 million people, and sits at an elevation of nearly one mile. Despite being so high in the mountains, Kunming enjoys a rather warm climate year round, leading to it being nicknamed "The City of Eternal Spring." It's home to an astounding array of shopping malls (some quite ritzy ones too, in fact), a thriving university, and, surprisingly, thousands of Muslims. The Muslims' settlement in Kunming harks back to the time of Kublai Khan (late 1200s). Khan's Mongol forces defeated the Chinese, and then took over the city. Under Mongol rule, Muslims began to flock to the city and set up shop. Despite facing serious oppression during the Cultural Revolution, the Muslims stayed put and are still found throughout Yunnan (Kunming's province) to date. As such, Kunming boasts a few mosques (unfortunately, all the old ones have been razed and replaced by newer models), and lots of Muslim foods.
We spent three full days in Kunming, and enjoyed our time there. We devoted two entire days to exploring the city on foot. We first visited the Yuantong Temple, which is over 1,000 years old. It's smack-dab in the middle of the city, and provides a pleasant oasis from the hustle and bustle of Kunming. From there we headed to Green Lake Park, which is located near the university. We walked around the lake and were treated to a pleasant slice of local-Kunming life. The park is attracts people of all ages, from little toddlers to college students, grade-school kids to septuagenarians (and up!), and there's something to satisfy everyone. There are basketball courts and knitting circles, carnival games and vendors, playgrounds and croquet games. We whiled away about half and hour watching some elderly gents and two dames playing the latter -- somehow the game worked with only two wickets. Exiting the park segued nicely into blindly wandering about the city, which we did for another three or four hours. We returned to the university on another afternoon and wandered amongst the different college buildings, soaking up the academic atmosphere (we also had some fantastic Mexican food in the area that day).
Apart from navigating our way (sometimes well, and at other times poorly) through the city streets, we also took a little day trip about 15 kilometers out of the city to Xi Shan Scenic Area. Xi Shan is a group of hills (Western Hills), combining to create a huge national park set along the banks of Dian Chi (Lake Dian). We took a series of buses to get to the park, which wound through the city and finally outside it. Once outside the city, we were shocked to see the number of factories and power plants that were hidden from the eye of the casual observer. The amount of pollutants continually pumped into the sky by these plants was what was really tough to stomach: the air was thick with it, and visibility was extremely poor. We assumed that didn't bode well for our little mountain hike...
Coors Light?!
but we were wrong. After hopping off the bus at the park and ascending the mountain a bit, we were out of the smog and haze, and back into nature. There are a number of different places to stop and see throughout Xi Shan. The first we stopped at was a nice botanical garden where all the magnolias were in full bloom -- a lovely sight. The gardens were also home to a variety of azaleas and a redwood forest that we were sure was really a mesquite forest -- it smelled fantastic (and made us crave some barbequed chips).
After a brief stroll through the gardens, we recommenced our climb (both of us feeling the altitude a bit) and made our way to Huating Temple. This temple was constructed during the 11th century and has seen numerous renovations and reconstructions. By the early 1920s, the temple was in serious disrepair and was about to be sold off to foreigners. A local monk put a stop to this and undertook the job of managing the renovations of the temple. Unfortunately, during the Cultural Revolution, many temples throughout China were damaged or destroyed. Huating Temple fell into the former category, but has since been restored to its former glory (in fact, they were doing some more construction when we visited). Once inside the temple, we ate our lunch of tasty "Russian" bread and tiny oranges (which I do so love) and soaked up the afternoon sun. After spending some time feeding the turtles (who were sunning themselves) and the fish, we set off to explore -- and we were not disappointed. The main temple (where we quite unfortunately could not take pictures) was probably the coolest temple I've ever seen. The walls are covered (literally wall to wall and floor to ceiling) in stone carvings of people and animals in various poses. It was amazing and well-worth the entrance fee.
However, our next destination was not. After some hiking through the woods (during which we witnessed a school field trip on which all the students were collecting (and in some cases sawing down) materials from the forest -- boooooo), we reached Taihua Temple. The temple was under construction, but the ticket lady didn't mention that and charged us the full fee to get in (ah, it was only 6Y or so (about 75 cents)).
From Taihua Temple, we hiked the rest of the way up the mountain and declined paying the steep admittance fee to the final tourist sight. Instead, we carried ourselves back down the mountain and bussed it back to Kunming.
Of course there were a variety of amusing English signs during our travels in and around Kunming. My favorite was at the "Please Don't Make Confused Noise When Chanting" sign we saw at Yuantong Temple. We'll keep you posted as they keep rolling in....
We still had places we wanted to check out in the area, but Kunming was going to be a hub of sorts for our travels, and we had already purchased our train tickets, so we were back on the road: destination Chengdu, Sichuan, supposedly one of the greatest places in all of China..
Doty Street Days
