Yunnan Part 1:

As part of our learning experience, IES arranged for us to go on a 2 week trip to Yunnan Province, including many a cool cities and villages.  It was a four hour flight from Beijing to Kunming.  When we arrived, I was amazed!  Compared to the frigid sub-zero capital, Kunming seemed like paradise.  My teacher described it as the San Francisco of China: palm trees, mountains in the distance, 70 degrees in the winter and 80 degrees in the summer.  Yeah, pretty nice. 

We stayed there for a few nights before heading out to a different city called Dali.  Dali is known for its historic significance as well as its old city, which features old school Chinese architecture and quaint stores and shops.  There we did a bicycle trip and even went to a hot spring.  The hot spring actually surprised me a bit.  Apparently, most hot springs are sulfur hot springs.  That means that the hot water is accompanied by a foul-ish-but-you’ll-get-used-to-it-egg/fart smell.  This was especially apparent when I took a poo and washed my hands with warm water.  I thought to myself “dang, it couldn’t have been THAT bad”.  Also, in Kunming and basically all of Yunnan, the bathrooms are characterized by squatter style toilets, no toilet papers supplied, no soap in the sink, and no towels/dryer.  As a person with limited leg flexibility, it took a good getting used to and training from my more balance sensitive friends before I could effectively cop a squat.  Also, bring your own toilet paper and sand sanitizers.  Although some of the nicer hotels will have completely western style bathrooms. 

We had a buttload of hiking trips.  I think we had 4 hiking days in total, which is complete nonsense if you ask me.  Beautiful, awe-inspiring, and majestic.  But complete nonsense.  The first one was by a smallish mountain in Dali.  It was well paved, the incline was gentle, and the altitude wasn’t too high.  Completely doable, I thought.  But the fact that there was no fence freaked me out something fierce.  I walked almost exclusively on the right, where the comfort of a mountainous wall was present.  The second/third hiking trip was on Tiger Leaping Gorge.  If you don’t know anything about Tiger Leaping Gorge, it’s the second largest gorge in the world, the first being the Grand Canyon.  Compared to the small mountain in Dali, which was fully equipped with a chairlift to take us halfway up and a gondola to take us the full way down, TLG was hell wrapped in tortured filled with contemplative suicide.  No fences, rocky slopey terrain, bridges made from 4 pieces of timber lying next to each other, waterfalls.  It was the real deal.  It was the mother of all hikes.  I came, I saw, I conquered.  Then I died. 

I went to bathroom on the most gorgeous bathroom in the world.  It was at a guest house/hostel deep within the mountain summit.  The bathroom is made up of 3 walls, two of them are on the side and one of them is the door.  The last side is an open air expansion facing the heart of TGL.  I took a pee while beholding the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld.  It was kind of cool.  Oh yeah, and I tagged this as a “global citizenship” thing because… well, I guess the travels made me more cosmopolitan and thus a citizen of the global variety.  Mehh.

Next up, pics and Yunnan: Part 2

Location: Kunming, China