Well china definately has it highs and lows and right now i am loving it....
I am getting over the staring and now i am embracing it with smiles,
getting over the toilets as they are never going to get any better and getting over the strange food as i am now almost a veggie and many more...
I arrived in Kunming with the plan to stay just one day and five days later i left in a completely different direction in which i had planned along with a few bed bug bites!
It was a fab place which was completely made by the people that i met, the hostel was like living with mates. I did one tourist thing the whole time! The rest of the time i was going out and embracing the chinese night life, a proper long haired moshing rock band, glitzy clubs with thousands of multi-coloured lights, weird music like "shes just a gangbang girl" (I dont think they understood the meaning of the words at all, well i hope not). The stangest toilets ever......i walked into the ladies and there were podiums with a squat loo inside and get this the door composed of chains!yes chains so everyone could see what you were doing and vicer-versa! We also found that alot of the chinese people would just come over during the night dishing out cigerettes and giving us beer in shot glasses for the purpose of doing a 'cheers' or as we do here 'gambet'.Found ourselves one night in a small bar dancing around like nutters, mates playing the bongos, using the dice holders as instruments and generally smiling like a cheshire cat whilst singing! Its been so much fun!
I did try the local food(cross the bridge noodles) with a guy i met called jack, he was a star as he somehow managed to order it...how?- i dont know as the place was so full and there were different counters to go to and basically it was the most confusing place ever! We sat down and waited for the food, first came an array of small plates containing,chopped onions,slices of meat,chicken and other unidentifiable food, then came a bowl of noodles and then a massive bowl of steaming soup. You basically whacked the whole lot in and everything cooked.It was delicous!!!-abit messy..i was flicking it everywhere buy hey ho most of it ended up in my mouth!
On sunday i went out of the hostel...thought i had better do something...and went to Green lake park. It was the most amazing afternoon....the park was packed, there were loads of groups of people playing music,singing and dancing. People chilling and playing checkers,knitting,sleeping and enjoying the beautiful scenery. I walked around for a couple of hours....then i came across this group sitting down and jamming so i decided to stop and listen to the music and watch the dancing. The instruments they used i am not entirely sure of the names but they looked like guitars and some had fiddles but the music was mesmerising, the singing takes a little getting used to (a little bit shrieky)....however as i was enjoying it the other people watching were fasinated with me. As soon as i clapped along with them at the end of the song they were laughing and pointing at me....quite amusing. I was soon offered a seat and immersed in conversations in chinese....my replies in english......i think you get the picture! I was also given a cigerette by a gentlemen (this provoked more looks...a white girl smoking!!!) and then he whipped out his flask and gave me some tea. It was a heart warming experience. I was one of 5 tourists there and for once i actually loved it!
I left the park and walked around it trying to get some sort of sense of direction...and i came across this guy busking who was amazing, he had such a beautiful voice and was brilliant on the guitar. Infront of him there was a father and daughter. The little girl was about three, in a very smart white dress totally wrapped up in the music and dancing like she was on a stage totally ignoring the crowd around her. She reminded me of grace 9my niece) and that made me smile so i sat down and watched mesmerised myself; and i know its so cheesy to say (but i will anyway) well it gave me a warming feeling inside. It made my day!
Whilst in 'hump hostel' i met a guy called Ant and we both established we were going to do the same journey so we decided to plan together and see what happeed .One day he came up to me and threw the idea of going to see some rice terraces in Yuanyang.....so out came the lonely planet and it sounded amazing....so time to sort it out. We enquired at the hostel about buses and had a little confusion.....but established that we didnt need to book ahead and that it left at 10.40am. Couldnt book the hostel there so we had no choice but to totally wing it. A couple of days later we got up bright and early, well 9am but with lack of sleep and a slight fuzzy head it was hard work...
We headed to the bus station only to find that we should have booked as there wasn't a bus til 7.30pm.....great. So we wandered around heading to a really nice cafe called salvadores, we walked for about an hour and a half stopping to get food from street stands, fried potatoes (the closest to roast potatoes as you can) and saw a random guy walking along with a speaker on a trolley blasting out music....why? i have no idea.....its just one of those things. The highlight of the day though was seeing a guy in a rickshaw cycling across the road only to misjudge the gap in the bollards and get himself completely jammed in.........he he he!
After recovering from this bout of laughing we eventually found the cafe only to find it shut! It kind of gave me an inkling to how the day would carry on....we chilled in there for 5 hours,eating,chatting and in the midst of a slight wave of boredom me placing chips in between ants toes.....We finally decided to head off only to step outside and it was terrential rain,thunder and lightening too. We felt like we had sat in there just to wait for the rain....bought a really naff umbrella and made our way to the bus. The bus, well hectic doesnt even fit into the equation...it was a sleeper bus,to start with two guys had to be kicked out of our bed and when i said 'our' bed it was a double....(ant and i had only met 5 days ago!), then they started piling more and more crap on including a massive box which was encompassing a 49"wide screen tv! There was no room.....the corridor was jam packed with all sorts but still they managed it and off we went. Random stops along the way, and we arrived, we just assumed that we had reached our destination as everyone was getting off......luckily we guessed right!
So, Yuangyang is a small town surrounded by rice terraces, we had chosen this destination based on the sunrises and sunsets but 4 days here and we have seen neither as the clouds are really low.....still its a great place and we are enjoying it. Considering half the time my head is in the clouds i think its very appropiate! We went for a fab walk down the mountain, saw the terraces and walked into them (not entirely sure if we are allowed), through the corn and millions of dragon flys buzzing around us. Little children we passed would start waving and saying hello to us, and i think we had an invite by some guys but what they were inviting us to and for we had no idea so we just went on our merry way. The highlight of the day was the laughs that we had and the rapid decline of our humour.....i couldnt resist the age old joke of 'why did the chicken cross the road?' as low and behold to our right that was excactly what was happening....it did create a belly holding laugh!
The food is great here, there are lots of little cafes where you walk in and choose the food from a bookshelf and they take it away and cook it fresh. I haven't had a bad meal yet, love all the vegetables we have had as seeing chickens trussed up by their feet through the street has kind of put me off meat. Met some other English guys which provoked us staring at them, "look there are some foreigners!" until we realised what we were doing and got a grip! We had a couple of beers, shared stories and listened to celene dion's..my heart will go on and auld lang syne....happy new year! Promptly left there as the cd seemed to be on repeat!
The people here are friendly even though the staring is still as rife as ever all you need to do is smile and its reciprocated. The other evening we were chilling in Titian square (remaned titty square as ant seems to make up the names half the time) watching the ladies with their bats and balls doing tai chi, admiring there local costumes (maio minority group) which are beautiful....(loads of embroidery,buttons and bells) and this little boy of about 2 comes over and waves at us, then out of the blue and completely off the cuff he blows me a kiss!- much to the amusement of everyone around us.
So, since we have been here we have wandered around, tried and tested the local food, seen and been in lots of clouds, been in a bizarre coffee shop/shop and had the hard sell....been on walks and i have bought myself some very funky local trobe trousers! Its all good.....We are heading to a place further south called ...something..something banna! Again i think we are going to wing it...
The only annoying thing here is that my wisdom tooth has gone into override and it is SO painful, dont worry though as i am now taking some kind of chinese medicine....now high as a kite when i am not sleeping!
The main reason we came was to see "the amazing sunrises and sunsets" as quoted by the Lonely Planet but we are seeming to have no luck at all....just clouds. However the place has a good vibe so we are staying and seeing what adventures we can find.
