The Yunnan Adventure Begins
This afternoon I went to the Beijing for my first trip to Yunnan. I don't know much about the area except that it is warmer than Beijing and that is enough to get me to come here.
We hopped on the plane for a short flight to the capital of Yunnan, Kunming. My first impressions of the city are good. It is clean and there are lots of places to shop. It is really a consumer's dream. There are clothing stores everywhere and they even have lots of name brands. Apparently people are investing in the area in hopes that the borders to neighboring countries like Burma will open up. Afterwards Kunming would become a major hub for trade in the area.
Getting to the airport to the place we were staying was pretty easy, but somehow the driver of our cab got into an accident. We were picking up a friend, so the driver stopped and let MCK out to go get him. Meanwhile the driver decided to get ready to leave and promptly backed into a telephone pole. This was after he was saying he was such a good driver too.
The first night in Kunming was not so eventful. We got into the hotel a little late, so by the time we went to go eat it was already about 10 o'clock, so most places were closed. We walked around for a little bit and then came to a place called the Camel Bar. It was pretty hip little joint run by a local musician. The ambience was nice and it was even a little romantic because they had to use candles to light all the tables since the regular electric lights weren't working. They had some great posters around the walls that said things like 'Smoke for Peace'. They also had a huge Jamaican flag with Bob Marley's picture on it and the dates 1981-2001. None of us could figure out the relevance of those dates.
The Second day in Kunnan was pretty fun as well. The first stop of the day was a noodle house. At the noodle house we ate some of Yunnan's specialty noodles. They were pretty tasty, but I would fly all the way just for the noodles. After we ate noodles we went to a beautiful Bhuddist temple right nearby. We spent about an hour or so walking around and taking pictures. The place was really peaceful, the sun was out and the sky was blue, so it was very relaxing just walking around. One of my most favorite things about the place were all the turtles swimming around in the water.
After we had our fill of the template was walked to the Kunming zoo, which was right nearby. I was a little worried before hand because I had heard stories about the Beijing zoo and how pathetic the animals and their conditions were. To say the least I was not too impressed with the zoo in Kunming either. A lot of the animals were chained up and it seemed like most of the favorite animals like lions and tigers were used for performances as well. I think the zoo in Kunming was more a carnival type attraction than a zoo simply because they also a rollercoaster and a ferris wheel and even an old airplane for you to sit in and take pictures in. In the aquarium section there was even a sea turtle whoes viewers were encouraged to throw coins into his 30 square foot pool of 6 inch deep water. It was kind of depressing to see actually. I think one of the first I am going to do when I get home is go to the Woodland Park Zoo just so I can forget about this zoo.
Dinner that evening was delicious. My friend's travel book mentioned a Dai restaurant near where we were staying, so we trekked over to that part of the city after going through Foreigner Street. The food was really good and the atmosphere was nice. The front of the restaurant was open to the street, so we could watch all of the people walking home from work and riding their bikes with their friends. It was not noisy at all because since Kunming is not very large most of the roads are pretty small. In some senses the restaurant reminded me of Key West.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head for the bus station. We scheduled to take the ten hour overnight bus to Lijiang. I will let you know now that it was an amazing experience.
We hopped on the plane for a short flight to the capital of Yunnan, Kunming. My first impressions of the city are good. It is clean and there are lots of places to shop. It is really a consumer's dream. There are clothing stores everywhere and they even have lots of name brands. Apparently people are investing in the area in hopes that the borders to neighboring countries like Burma will open up. Afterwards Kunming would become a major hub for trade in the area.
Getting to the airport to the place we were staying was pretty easy, but somehow the driver of our cab got into an accident. We were picking up a friend, so the driver stopped and let MCK out to go get him. Meanwhile the driver decided to get ready to leave and promptly backed into a telephone pole. This was after he was saying he was such a good driver too.
The first night in Kunming was not so eventful. We got into the hotel a little late, so by the time we went to go eat it was already about 10 o'clock, so most places were closed. We walked around for a little bit and then came to a place called the Camel Bar. It was pretty hip little joint run by a local musician. The ambience was nice and it was even a little romantic because they had to use candles to light all the tables since the regular electric lights weren't working. They had some great posters around the walls that said things like 'Smoke for Peace'. They also had a huge Jamaican flag with Bob Marley's picture on it and the dates 1981-2001. None of us could figure out the relevance of those dates.
The Second day in Kunnan was pretty fun as well. The first stop of the day was a noodle house. At the noodle house we ate some of Yunnan's specialty noodles. They were pretty tasty, but I would fly all the way just for the noodles. After we ate noodles we went to a beautiful Bhuddist temple right nearby. We spent about an hour or so walking around and taking pictures. The place was really peaceful, the sun was out and the sky was blue, so it was very relaxing just walking around. One of my most favorite things about the place were all the turtles swimming around in the water.
After we had our fill of the template was walked to the Kunming zoo, which was right nearby. I was a little worried before hand because I had heard stories about the Beijing zoo and how pathetic the animals and their conditions were. To say the least I was not too impressed with the zoo in Kunming either. A lot of the animals were chained up and it seemed like most of the favorite animals like lions and tigers were used for performances as well. I think the zoo in Kunming was more a carnival type attraction than a zoo simply because they also a rollercoaster and a ferris wheel and even an old airplane for you to sit in and take pictures in. In the aquarium section there was even a sea turtle whoes viewers were encouraged to throw coins into his 30 square foot pool of 6 inch deep water. It was kind of depressing to see actually. I think one of the first I am going to do when I get home is go to the Woodland Park Zoo just so I can forget about this zoo.
Dinner that evening was delicious. My friend's travel book mentioned a Dai restaurant near where we were staying, so we trekked over to that part of the city after going through Foreigner Street. The food was really good and the atmosphere was nice. The front of the restaurant was open to the street, so we could watch all of the people walking home from work and riding their bikes with their friends. It was not noisy at all because since Kunming is not very large most of the roads are pretty small. In some senses the restaurant reminded me of Key West.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head for the bus station. We scheduled to take the ten hour overnight bus to Lijiang. I will let you know now that it was an amazing experience.
posted by Jon Keto at
11:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home