Into the Wild

The countryside here is refreshingly wild and dramatic after the flat green farmland around Wuhan (not that I see the countryside much anyhow; I should say the flat shopping malls around Wuhan). 

Along the road heading south out of Kunming the hills are rocky and barren, red dirt exposed, here and there dotted with scrub brush.  The trees in the valleys are tall thin cypress that make me homesick for Italy, although dustier and more wind-blown than any I remember there.  In fact, for a moment the landscape reminded me a bit of Tuscany, except there the hills are golden age grass, not orange-red dirt, but the moment passed. 

The buildings, painted in oranges and tans, blend into the landscape, except for the long, low greenhouses, covered in plastic sheeting that glints in the sun, that are crowded into every flat place, struggling to feed the millions in Kunming.

Higher mountains line the distance to the east; I look forward to edging closer as we veer southeast; few things give me the euphoria I feel in the mountains. 

Occasionally I get glimpses out the right side of the bus of Dian Chi, the forty-kilometer long lake whose north shore wraps around Kunming.  The attached pictures aren't very good, but that's the best I could get.  I have an aisle seat and the windows are darkly tinted, and dirty besides, so don't expect any great photography from this particular leg of the journey. 

Barely made it

Whew...I have to watch my money on this trip, so I decided to take a city bus to the South Long-Distance Bus Station on the edge of town instead of an expensive taxi.  According to the receptionist at the hostel, it would take an hour and a half that way.  So, I got up early and set out two hours and twenty minutes before my bus was due to leave, just to make sure that I would have plenty of time.

Well, if you've ever traveled you know how things go.  The directions that the receptionist gave me turned out to be rather vague in places, and I had to stop and ask directions and walk a couple of blocks when I changed buses. And then, just as I was starting to get nervous about time anyhow, the bus driver slammed on his brakes. Fortunately, I had a pretty good grip on the bar (the bus was cram-packed, I'd already been standing for forty minutes), and although I was thrown nearly into a squat I held on as a couple of people bounced off of me. Three was that sickening scraping crunch that anyone who drives dreads hearing.  A car had stuck its nose over into the bus lane, and our driver couldn't stop in time.

Thankfully, no one suffered more than a scrape or bruise.  A couple of 185 buses came up behind so we got off our damaged bus and loaded onto the others and continued on our way.  I was really starting to get nervous about time now; we didn't seem to be anywhere near an area that would have a major bus station, and it was already taking longer than the receptionist had said.

I started asking around to the people around me to find out how much further. A boy assured me it was the next stop for about three stops, and a man sais he was going the same place and it wasn't much further.  A girl who looked about the age of my college freshmen, who remembered some English from school appointed herself as my guide. We got off the bus about twelve minutes before my bus was scheduled to depart, but she led me through the crowds down the block, into the bus station, and walked me all the way to security.  I made it through just in time.  The luggage compartment was already full, so I had to take my backpack up top and sit it in the aisle, and I was the last person on, but I made it. 

Dragon Gate

After enjoying the amazing view from the top of the cliff, I followed the trail on down.  There was a cable car on down a ways and I intended to take it down, but when I got there I found it closed. I was really aggravated at first, as I thought the only alternative was to hike talk the way down, which, as it was already four, I didn't know if I could do before dark.

With the help of a friend translating over the phone and a not-terribly-bright park employee, I found out that there was a bus about halfway down, so I went on. In the end, I'm glad my original plan didn't work out, because I thoroughly enjoyed the next section of the trail, which wound down the steep slope of the mountain facing the city, and across the cliffs.

Earlier on the bus I had looked up and saw a little balcony sticking out of the cliff, and now I realized that this was the Dragon Gate. The trail came out of the trees into a little tunnel which came out on this cliffside balcony overlooking the city.  A fancy Chinese archway was set against the cliff, the Dragon Gate; it led to a stairway built into the mountain that came out to a couple of other viewing platforms before depositing hikers back onto the trail through the woods.

It wasn't too much further unit I came to the main entrance of the park and caught the last bus back down the mountain, before taking another bus, a taxi, and quite a lot of walking to dinner and back to the hostel.

Xi Shan (West Hill)

After I left the Bamboo Temple, it was still fairly early in the day, so I decided to head over to the West Hills. There's a saying in Kunming that you haven't seen Kunming until you've seen the West Hills, and you haven't seen the West Hills until you've seen the Dragon Gate. 

I glanced at the map and thought it would be fairly quick and easy to hop a bus over to the entrance to the West Hills hiking trails, but I was wrong.  I had to take a bus back down into town, then two more buses and a minivan to get somewhere I wanted to be.  It took me a couple of hours to figure all that out, but it was worth the trouble.

Fortunately, I met up with a local woman who pointed me in the right direction, to start at the top and hike back down. I was smiling as soon as I walked in the south gate up near the top of the mountain.  The ridge was rather barren, with no trees until I got a bit further down, but very rocky.  It reminded me a bit of a landscape from the first Hobbit movie (I spent the weekend before I left watching the two Hobbit movies and the Lord of the Rings, and now I am reading the Lord of the Rings, so it's not surprising that that's what everything reminds me off).  It seems like I ought to be able to come up with a more poetic way of describing it, but you can see a picture at least. 

I hiked down the trail through the woods to a pavilion on a rocky outcrop on the top of the cliff.  From there the entire city lay below, with the Dian Chi lake stretching off into the distance to the south. 

Bamboo Temple

I woke up in Kunming to a perfect sunny day, a bit chilly in the morning but perfect walking weather as it warmed up to about sixty degrees.  I was able to order my bus ticket to Yuanyang tomorrow from the hostel, so I had the day free to explore. 

Kunming has a few sites that people visit in the city, temples, parks, museums and the like, nothing special, really.  There is a zoo, which I might go to if I was in Kunming for several days, but having just one day I decided to go to the West Hills, a high ridge on the edge of town overlooking the city and Dian Chi, the huge (forty kilometer long) lake that borders the city. 

My first destination was the Bamboo Temple. The bus left the city and wound up a switchback road up into the hills. Along the way the views out over the city below and up into wooded ravines got better and better.  Finally we left all sight of the city behind and were surrounded only by woods.  I was the only foreigner on the bus, and the only one to get off at the temple. 

The Lonely Planet guidebook touts the temple as an interesting visit because of the large collection of realistic sculptures by some famous artist that I've never heard of, done over a hundred years ago.  Supposedly some are crazy-monks surfing on the backs of turtles and such.  I never found those, although there was a section closed, so maybe they were up there.  The ones I did see were less formal than usual, but not doing anything particularly noteworthy. 

Even though I didn't find what I was looking for, it wasn't a wasted trip.  The temple was a pretty but fairly typical Chinese Buddhist temple, but it did have some interesting features.  On all of the railings the posts were topped with little animals, each different: cat, dog, dolphin, lion, mouse, monkey, all sorts of birds... Also, I found a small pavilion covering a bronze statue of a reclining Rhino.  On either side of the main gate, too, the window screens were figures of rhinos.  Why in the world, way out here?

The main court of the temple was fairly busy with people, a few people worshiping, a few Chinese tourists, and a couple of women sorting out a large collection of the unnaturally bright fake flowers used for temple offerings, but the further in the fewer people. Up on a hill behind was a long covered walkway, a small pond, size stone stupas with the perfect morning light filtering through the trees onto them, some stone tables and stools, and the aforementioned rhino.  A couple of Chinese tourists came down the stairs as I was going up, but after that I had the place to myself. 

The best part was the quiet and tranquility sitting up there, looking out over the temple and towards the hills across the valley, which were dotted with tombs.  Living in a big city, it's worth the bus ride to be surrounded by trees and no people. 

Rough Itinerary

Okay, so rough itinerary. 

1/7 flight to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwest China

1/8 Wander around Kunming, go out to the Bamboo Temple

1/9 Bus to Yuanyang rice terraces

1/10, 1/11 Yuanyang Rice Terraces

1/12 bus back to Kunming

1/13 bus to Lijiang, unless I can get a night bus the night before

1/14 Lijiang

1/15 Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (take cable car up)

1/16, 1/17, 1/18 Tiger Leaping
Gorge

1/19, 1/20, 1/21, 1/22 depends...maybe up to Deqin in the mountains, or to Dali, depending on weather and recommendations along the way

1/23 back to Kunming from wherever, or another day meandering in Kunming if I come in on a night bus

1/24 Flight to Singapore

1/25, 1/26 Singapore.  There are many churches in Singapore, so I hope to visit one on Sunday.

1/27 flight to Yogakarta, Indonesia, on the island of Java

About a week and a half on Java, visiting Borobudur temple, Mount Bromo, around Yogya, etc.

Bus or train and ferry to Bali, the next island over

About a week goofing around Bali, probably based in the town of Obud. 

2/13 flight back to Wuhan

So, there you go.  The second half I haven't ironed out exactly, but I will plan as I go.   I made it to Kunming; I am on the shuttle bus from the airport into town now. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the new terminal building, which was one of the more interesting and colorful ones I've seen, but I couldn't dig my camera out of the depths of my bag fast enough. 

No stamping!

Sorry the picture is so blurry, but I wanted to share the first Chinglish of the trip.  These signs were in all the western toilet stalls in the new Kunming airport;  I know their purpose, to remind those not used to western toilets not to stand on the seats to squat as they are used to, but I found them amusing. 

Out of the Misty

Song lyrics again, although I think it's really "out of the mystic".

I made it to the airport a bit early, and now I am waiting to board.  I look forward to rising above the clouds and out of this thick gray day.

Off Again

Again, I feel the need to sing that Whitesnake song...Here I go again, on my own, going down the only road I've ever known...

It's a miserable foggy cold rainy day here in Wuhan, but I am in a taxi making my way around the 3rd ring road to the airport. 

It seems that most people prefer to travel for a week or two at a time, but I have always liked the long hauls, the meandering journeys, drifting from place to place. 

The longest I've been gone on a continuous trip was seven weeks, if you don't count the two-and-a-half month study abroad I went on in Belgium when I was in college, which I really don't since, while we were gone from home for longer, we had a home base that we always returned to. So, seven weeks of continuous travel; that was my first exploration of China, Vietnam, and Laos, in the summer of 2010. I guess nostalgia is an odd emotion for the beginning of a trip, but nonetheless my past journeys are on my mind.

Looking ahead, this trip will be just a bit over five weeks; I have to return by Valentine's Day as classes begin again the Monday after. 

Chinglish, December edition

I haven't posted any interesting Chinglish lately, so here's a bit to ponder over.

I know it seems like making fun, and it is in a way, but not mean-spirited.  My Chinese friends whose English is good giggle at it too when they come across it.  Besides, I'd hate to see the stuff I'd come up with if I were writing in Chinese. 

M-Kitchen

On this sunny but terribly smoggy (the air quality index got up to over 400 by noon, very hazardous), I got a message from Tammy about meeting for lunch at Guanggu. 

We ended up at M-Kitchen, one of several somewhat fancy restaurants up on the fifth floor of the mall.  It's a south Asia fusion place-dishes with curry, or Thai flavors, and even the occasional Vietnamese influence.  We had seafood spring rolls, mango fried chicken, an eggplant dish, and a kind of thing made of two pieces of thin, tortilla-like bread with a curried beef filling.  Tammy and I also got fancy strawberry juices. 
We walked around the mall a bit and went to Carrefour after-again I was reminded why I normally try to do my shopping on a weekday. Eeesh.

Spending time with these two is always good for laughter, especially as Tammy says that Micah makes her laugh just by, well, existing.