You got it! China – the communist country with an enterprise touch!

Kunming didn’t have much to offer for spoilt travelers. As Ediboy had caught a cold from Hongkong's "freezer-buses" (hope is not one of those deadly pig flu), we decided to stay two nights in Kunming.

We visited the Bamboo Temple. It housed many funny statues of monks in all different (absurd) life-positions. A real monk gave us an insight into his daily life. In his very gentle and delicate voice, he gave the two tourists a mini "lecture" on what should be eaten, how one should pray and also how breast-feeding after an intercourse would affect a child(???). Well, still puzzled on what triggered him to comment on the last point...errm..god knows why!

For safety reason and also taking into consideration the Swiss patient's health condition, we chose to travel in "Deluxe Bus’. So the bus was manufactured in Germany as stated on the price board. For US$13, we raced the 400km in 5 hours to Dali on excellent highways. Light refreshments,video movies, karaoke and clean lavatory on board, made it a pleasant journey. The new excellent highway has connecting bridges and tunnels which shortened the whole journey as opposed to taking the old windy road which cut through valleys. The ride took us past changing landscapes ranging from reddish and bare land to scrubs and dry grass to lustrous green crop fields. Villages were found wherever there are flowing rivers. Terraces of paddy fields and many different crops carpeted the hills and flat land.

Old-Dali (30km away from the uncharacteristic, modern and Chinese-styled new Dali) went through a major face-lift. The ancient city-walls, gates and houses along the entire north-south axis were re-constructed with old-styled architectures. They appeared attractive from a distance, but not when you are near them – new with a pretentious ancient flavour. Thousands of Chinese tourists strolled up and down the streets, posing in front of the gate-temple (now a souvenir shop). To us, the Chinese are very rude: they neither queue nor give way. Rubbish were disposed everywhere, and not to mention the habitual spitting in the public. We witnessed a fight between a young woman and a mother with a child strapped onto her back. The drama started at the beginning of the street and continued right to the other end "spiced" with shrieks and aggressive body gestures. It seemed like that is their way of life, so we had to adapt..

Most travelers (individuals) shunned the hordes of local tourists (in package tour) by checking into a guesthouse tailored for westerners' needs. Well, you will never be "Lonely on the Planet". The L.P’s highly-rated No.4 guesthouse has similar settings in Leonardo DiCaprio's movie -"The Beach". Backpacker’s paradise: a shady courtyard with hideaways around a pond. English menu, banana pancake, coin laundry and e-mailing service. Well. we weren't looking for a holiday resort, thus we followed another tout to……

The Taiwanese-owned place (money is better than politics) looked more cozy. Listening (unintentionally) from our balcony, we could follow interesting stories: a Taiwanese traveler experienced nightly encounter with somebody knocking at her door and wanting to share the room.

China doesn’t welcome gays, but an obvious "happy" couple was discussing their problem under their breath in the courtyard. What a difference compared to the loud discussions among the Chinese.

After a day's stay, we had to change hotel again as Ching Yee didn’t react very well to the local-styled toilet in this guesthouse.

Many accommodations, which were not listed in the guidebooks, were better and cheaper. So we found a all-wooden guesthouse enclosing a nice cobblestone courtyard.It was modelled after the ancient kezhang (guesthouse). They promised us "no karaoke", but the restaurant guests liked to party all night long. After a day’s out exploring the town, we dragged ourselves back to the guesthouse and had to find two guys drinking at the table outside our room. Well, they were asked politely to continue their drinking at another balcony diagonally opposite ours. Going to the shower room was like "parading on the catwalk" – we had to make our way down the steep stairs past the full-seated courtyard in our sarongs and toiletries in our hands...well, did make a few heads turn even we were neither Cindy Crawford or Brad Pitts..hahaha!

The mornings were usually quiet. Ching Yee could follow interesting conversations between two interesting chinese women with burnt orange hair. They were chatting with each other and talking into their mobile phones simultaneously, very loudly in the local dialect. They were sitting seductively in the courtyard. The one cladded in silvery micro-mini skirt with devilish red varnished nails was throwing glances at me from time to time..uhem... We didn’t manage to figure out if they were there for chinese business meeting or running as call-girls…

This is a place where the Chinese stroll on the north-south axis, buying rock-honey, tea and other medicines. The westerners congregated at Huogualou. Just another ghetto like Khaosan-road in Bangkok: T-shirt, schnitzel, pizza milkshake and pancakes. The astonishing thing was that most of them liked to be there. Certainly, a spoilt "kid" like myself, had also spent once in a while 10 times more for a real coffee instead of regular Chinese tea. But for food, we explored the town. If the cook didn’t dig into his nose, we would look what his menu had to offer. The next moment, we were invited to the kitchen by the cook where we were told, "Point out what you wanna eat!". Dumplings, noodle-soup, claypot rice, shrimps, rice, vegetable -never the same in different places. However the freshwater fish were always masked with muddy taste.

Besides checking out food and hotels, we explored the area. From the Zhongue-temple you could have a nice view on the Erhai-lake. We crossed a busy and loud market. To attract customers, every shop tried to outdo one another with loud and deafening music played over big and low quality loudspeakers. One could literally feel the earth vibrating while making ways through these streets. On our way to the temple, we had to balance ourselves on dried paddy fields and followed a path through a cemetery. ChingYee rebelled halfway complaining of steep mountains and was asking for food. There was a nice vista around the corner so we returned and we spotted the only free living wild animal during our trip - a wild hare. At a dilapidated farmhouse, we found some hemp (ganja), the tea made out of it didn’t work. We came across other secluded spots where one could grow your own crop. Making our way down, we discovered an old farmhouse. It was like a mini castle cut off from the rest of the world with stoned-wall erected all around. In front of the house was a pond with floating lilies. Vegetable garden and blooming flowers surrounded the land around the house. We could hear faint kids' laughter from inside the house. Ching Yee, being a curious cat, went down to find the door to this "castle". It took her quite a while to spot the entrance as the door was apparently tucked amongst bushes with creepers growing on every inch of the old wooden doors. Didn't want to disturb the tranquility with the knock on the door...she left with envy...beautiful..it looked like a paradise… well, further upcountry it should lead to Shangri-La.

In James Hilton’s bestseller "Lost Horizons"(1993), he described such a place. The fictional novel was based on articles of the National Geographic (1922). At that time only a few westerners made it to this remote place. Even today it’s understandable that they thought of paradise. Probably there were less Han Chinese, so the local tribes weren’t minorities like today. The Chinese government implemented developmental plans into this region, and but also pushed for more Chinese settlers. Minorities are good for tourism but business and land should be in other hands.

As one of the nightly entertainments, I went to the hairdresser instead of cinema. Before the haircut, I was shampooed like a poodle. Four times and each time I received a fully relax scalp and facial massage. In the shop, you would find a sign in Chinese which read "Please complain if your massage lasts less than 30 minutes"

It’s nice to see the local market in Shaping. Old Naxi women with creased faces clothed in traditional outfits were engaged in selling and buying. The foreigners were nearly lost amongst all the local people and that’s a nice part too.

Xizhou is a town at the Erhai -lake, which let us step back in time. Wooden houses with enclosed courtyards where three-generation family live together. Grannies meet regularly at the village square. We were watching the gathering and eating the freshly baked Dali-Baba bread bought from the roadside vendor.

We found a way to the lake after weaving through narrow alleys and smelling gutters. Rubbish were everywhere and the farmers were trying to burn all the plastic on smoldering fires. I hoped the fishes in the fish farms didn’t get too much carbon dioxide…

A lesson learnt -Never take the first hotel again. As we wanted to take an early bus the next day further up to Zhongdian(near the Tibetian border), we settled for an hotel near the bus station. Accommodations near transit-stations were horrible. On our way back, we found a completely different one…

The Manageress was a 26 year- old "Jenny" from Beijing. Mother and sister helped to run the little place. Spartan, but clean rooms. A puppy-dog and a pussycat added to the homey atmosphere. Even a Francis-Francis expresso machine enthroned the bar. (Bought in Hong Kong costing US$470 - with the coffee beans flown in from Beijing – but they don’t know the Illi-system)

Of course I was keen to play bartender, just for the short black aromatic drink for myself..…

It’s nice that the Japanese mum and boy brought changes to this place. I always had to hide the sweets from Hikaru, the cookie-monster. We met them in Dali. She had been travelling with her two-year-old son for a couple of months through China, Thailand and India. Chapeau, not that easy and relaxed.

When experts recounted damage after a major earthquake, they were astonished about the ancient beauty of Lijiang. the whole old town was taken into the " World Heritage Inventory List". Certainly they didn’t want to protect the sewage-system, but the setup and structure from the old town. Well done, otherwise the Chinese would turn it to Hollywood-town a la Dali.

We sat on a veranda at a local restaurant enjoying the dumplings flavoured with fresh spring onions.

One of the many channels was flowing in front of the wooden house. Alleys and streets were made of solid stone-cubicles, no motor vehicles was allowed inside the old city. The channels weren’t that wide (1m), but quick flowing with clear water from the nearby Jade Snow Dragon Mountains. Unluckywise some toilets are still connected directly to the freshwater stream. While eating and observing the street-life, we realized that half the water supply to that the kitchen came from that water: dishwashing, washing fresh vegetable e.g. spring-onions..errrr

After the fifth store, we couldn’t resist: we wanted individual Chinese seals. It took a long time to bargain and Ching Yee was embarrassed of my attempt of "super hard" bargaining which slashed price deep into the well. We got all the seals but we discovered later in Kunming that it would be far cheaper to carve the stones in the shopping center. Well, that couple played a good plot – telling us about the expensive stone and complicated designs that we demanded. Yeah, yeah..I wanted names in English, Japanese and Chinese all to be carved in one seal plus blah blah blah....

A more honest deal was the impressive concert of 30 over musicians. Total age: estimated 2000 years, the oldest one was near his nineties, but he could still bang the gong.

Ancient instruments and forgotten songs. Clear, high pitched voices of local maiden in tribal clothings. Hopefully they will find successors. Dr. Xuan Ke, a Naxi scholar , who was the conductor and talkmaster was worried about the disinterest youth. Well, not long ago the Chinese rulers didn’t allow ethnic costumes and music. They were considered as anti-revolutionary.

Went through five unbearable hours in a cramped minibus with neither food-stop nor toilet-stop. Our lives laid in the hands of a reckless driver who took us down many winding roads at high speed. The company of a group of heavy smokers did not make it any better either. I was wondering how would the ride to Lhasa be like? Five days and nights covering a distance of 5000km…phew!

Due to time constraint, the farthest we could go during our trip this time was to Zhongdian, a town near the Tibetian border. Passing by many wide grass pastures, which stood many tibetian styled houses and grazing yaks. The Chinese claimed it now their land. After all the modern-stereotyped buildings of the communist area before, we thought we had entered into an other world. It even resembled a setup for the newest "Flintstones" movie. Imagine a vast grass-plain, then a house standing at four metre high, looking like a castle with its metre thick earthen walls and a three-meter high window. The entrance to the courtyard was made of full-sized stems of fir; colorfully decorated with symbols of swastikas, sun and moon. A massive and slightly inclined roof was supported by 3 to 4 wooden pillars about 5 meters apart. According to a German author, who had stayed for 4 seasons over in this area, the main room contains a big central log fire for cooking and heating purpose in the harsh winter.

A Tibetan monastery built like the famous Potala in Lhasa. For an entrance fee, we were allowed to stroll around. Peeping through a window at chanting monks and chatting wih an idle monk. A source of income come from the exchange of blessing by Panchen for cash. Not much, but it would certainly accumulate enough to continue to finance the repair for the damage caused by the Chinese army in the olden days.

Chinese have a different taste for tourist attraction. We wanted to see the Naba Lake in the highland plain. So why go into a compound of souvenir-stalls and even have to pay an entrance fee? Just because the bus was stopping there? Ignoring the shouting of the guard , we headed towards a hill for the lookout. Just different tastes. Well, Ms Loo would not forget that "grand-view" at the top of that little hill. But I was blamed for being selfish and self-centered because I walked half an hour straight up to the little temple( I was way ahead of her..) and was holding onto the backpack which contained our food and water, so teacher had to walk…

Good food can easily please the tired tourists, especially Ching Yee and Edi. So we tried yak meat. The couple in the 4 times by 4 meter restaurant prepared the pre-dried meat in different ways: barbecued, fried and smoked. The red meat was ok, but the "rich and tasty" butter-tea was for "connoisseur".

For the return trip we tried something different. Night-sleeper-bus!

Despite seeing an overturned sleeper-bus on our way upcountry, we still took this option to get into Kunming in one night. It wasn’t that bumpy and filthy like what the Chinese had described. At least it was much more comfortable than the Japanese-styled regular buses!

Two people had to share a berth of about 1m wide. Not a problem if you had brought your buddy with you…but try to imagine having a chain-smoking, spitting and unwashed neighbour beside u?

The end last edited 14.5.00cy/eb