December 14, 2002, Lijiang, China
Our arrival in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, was as usual: get off the train when the rush has gone, exit the station carrying all our packs (7 at this point!), buy tickets for our next destination (no hassle with friendly, English speaking attendant) and get a cab to the best hotel mentioned in "the book" (Lonely Planet's South-West China). Supposedly that was the "Camellia", Kunming's main backpacker's option thanks to its cheap dorms (US$ 3/bed). Not for us... We found a much better place with private bathroom five minutes walking on the same street: a brand new, 3-4 star hotel with an "older wing". Perfect for us (except for the fact that we had to climb 3 floors)!
The first couple of days were spent getting our bearings in town and running errands. This city is very much like Chengdu with its many large modern hotel & office buildings, new department stores, wide avenues with luxury cars, etc. The weather was sunny so we didn't need a sweater during the day. Picking up money is easy in China always using ATM's. Mommy found another Fuji lab to process more slides. We applied for our (very expensive) Laos visas (yup, our next country, and a destination for most travelers we meet on the road here). We also met up again with Albin (the Swede from Zhaoxing) and his family and we had dinner in a restaurant with a minority dance show.
Then the big moment came that I had been looking forward to for many weeks: Dec. 3 we went to the airport to pick up Oma, who was arriving from Amsterdam. She looked really good after traveling for over 30 hours and I had so much to tell her... And you should have seen what was in the extra piece of luggage: 5 kg. of only food from Holland! It was amazing after more than 4 months on the road and we were very happy, especially Papa... Right from the beginning Oma was in awe to see that China was so modern and so much cleaner and that the people friendlier. Quite different from what she had been expecting.
The next few days were spent visiting a quaint bird/flower/art/curio/souvenir market in the old part of the city with lots of traditional wooden houses; purchasing tickets for several flights within Yunnan; visiting a very old Buddhist temple; and of course (belatedly) celebrating Oma's 70th birthday at the "show restaurant", complete with Champagne (remember the 5 kg?). Papa also had to send our video camera back to Toronto by UPS for repair since it kept giving us trouble. Hopefully we'll get it back soon so he can keep posting pictures with my stories. On Dec. 5th we had a tiny St. Nicholas celebration, a traditional Dutch party with lots of gifts and candy. I sang some songs and got a chocolate letter, pepernoten and choco money thrown on the bed, speculaas and a colouring book. It was great, so now bring on Christmas...
On our last day in Kunming we took the train to the Stone Forest, 2 hours east. Papa had heard that there was a way to avoid paying the exorbitant and unfair entry price (US$ 10), so upon arrival at the main gate, we looked at some souvenir stalls and eased our way into the next-door village. That was great: narrow paths, friendly people, some making souvenirs, old houses, etc. And before we knew it (even passing the local police office...) we were inside the Stone Forest. It's hard to describe: large, up to 50 m. (150 ft.) high, sharp, limestone pinnacles that seem to have just risen out of the ground
millions of years ago. You can walk through the "forest" over little paths and in the beginning the place was very crowded with Chinese tours, all guided by charming ladies dressed in minority costumes. As we wandered further from the entrance we ended up being alone and enjoyed a wonderful picnic of pate, cheese and baguette. Papa had to try out a couple of climbing moves (disapproved of by his mother and his wife) and I chose to try moves on my own rock too... (again to the disapproval of my mother and my Oma). Early
afternoon we walked out of the main gate (!) and caught the first bus to Kunming. Halfway we decided to switch buses (ours was just too slow) and arrived in Kunming just in time to collect our Laos visas. Our last dinner was with Daniela (from the horse trek) who was
It was a short trip so at 6:30 am the train rolled into Xiaguan and we were met by a hoard of touts, all wanting us to board a bus to various destinations. One got lucky as we got on his bus to his office where we waited for the bus to Lijiang. This ended up being a bad decision because the bus was empty when we got in so it went around town for at least an hour
