Confucious Say "Watch Out Here Come The Mitchells"

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Well, as we keep saying after we pinch ourselves ‘we’re in China!’
We had one night in Vientiene before we left at 4.30 am to fly to Kunming in Yunnan province.

Kunming is a city of about 1 million, the capital of the Yunnan province, it has the same sort of ebb and flow of all cities so for us it was a good introduction to China. It also introduced us to the fact that, whether it is peculiar to the Mitchell China experience or not, everything here seems to take a long time!

After we cleared immigration and customs (with a big sigh of relief) we were then approached by a young couple who had been on the plane with us (a guy from the States and his Chinese wife) who offered to give us some help to get into the city and find a hotel if we needed. It was such a lovely gesture, we had a hotel booked but they put us into two taxi’s and gave the drivers the hotel address which was great. It is help like this that really makes such a difference to the whole travel experience (they have also given us their email and phone numbers in case we need any help or advice or if we are traveling anywhere near them). With the excitement of this help I didn’t realize until shortly after that I happened to be in a taxi in China with no money, no passport, two children and obviously no idea! Anyway, after the two cabs parked in the middle of a busy street to discuss where the hotel was and make several phone calls to find out we eventually made it to the hotel.

We stayed at the Mercure which had English speaking reception staff which was a comforting feeling although not that useful really . It turned out that we were in hairdresser and ‘safety shop’ district with every second shop one or the other. Not needing any witches hats or glow in the dark clothing and seeing the haircuts on some of the hairdressers it was not so much a convenient location but fine for our stay. Taxi’s were really cheap and the kids turned hailing them into an Oscar winning performance so we were kept entertained while we were waiting.

We jumped straight into the Chinese cuisine and headed off to Brothers Jiang for the Yunnan signature dish “Across the Bridge Noodles” on our first day. We imagined a quaint little piece of Chinese serenity with authentic, tasty food. When we pulled up outside and saw the queue and the crowd inside our culinary illusion was dashed. Things didn’t get much better when we realized that the menu was in Chinese (funny that). Luckily an old man behind us who must have been hungry helped us out and ordered for the kids and us at the door. Inside was complete mayhem with every seat taken and waiters carrying enormous trays of soup at break neck speed and a sign on the wall saying ‘please look after your kids in case of the unexcepted’, we think the ‘unexpected’ might be “across the children noodles”! We had way more food than we needed and a very busy introduction to Yunnan food.

After Brothers Jiang we had a wander around and it wasn't long before we found ourselves at a tea tasting. It was a lovely experience although we didn't have a grasp of how it works and it didn't take long before the kids were whispering that they couldn't drink anymore!

We got our bearings in the city with a few walks about the place, one intended as an evening ‘walk around the block’ which we realized after some time was not your average square shaped block (also known as a block that doesn’t end) and slowly but surely got lost! This was the afternoon of the taxi trip from the airport so of course the children weren’t amused and wanted to go straight back to Laos!

Getting a phone card also took forever but after asking at several places we took the plunge and got a China SIM. It was not to be as easy as our previous travels and took nearly two hours to get the card to work at two separate shops and we still can’t call International, but after the boys had spent two hours wrestling the shop assistants we thought it was time to go.

The Chinese people are great, very friendly and eager to help. Pretty much anyone we have asked for help has made an attempt at trying to understand us and will make phone calls to friends to ask them for assistance as well. Mitchy continues to use his international communication style which consists of hand movements and a series of whistling, clicking and other weird noises (as useful here as everywhere else!).

We have religiously used the Lonely Planet during our travels and this has been invaluable, we bought a Chinese edition second hand in Laos, (we had heard that the Chinese sometimes confiscate them and on a budget did not want to lose a full priced investment). Now being seasoned travellers (in our minds) we were well aware that it was a 2007 edition and may at times be out of date, what we didn’t factor on was that when faced with four tired and hungry children we might forget this fact, not once but twice…and that both the lunch and evening meal choices (on the same block, okay I know) had been demolished in China’s rush into the consumer age and were now piles of rubble. I don’t think the children will ever believe ‘it’s just around the corner’ from us ever again.

We booked a bus to Dali while in Kunming and had a lovely Chinese travel agent (called Olivia) who advised us to go direct to the station as it would save us the commission and was only about seven minutes walk. After walking a Mitchell seven minutes (which allows for Mac to go one step forward, three to the side, two jumps off a step and a brief stop to pick who knows what up off the pavement, plus at least one tired whingey child (or me) dragging their feet and at least one family disagreement of varied combinations) we realized we had headed in the wrong direction so turned back and found the right street. This street of course had several bus stations but we were assisted by a couple of friendly looking Chinese people who we soon realized were touts, of course Mitchy gave them a brief mouthful when he saw the buses that were on offer and off we headed again. We finally found the station and have not yet calculated a $30 saving divided by two hours, six people and several pairs of sore feet.

One of the attractions of Kunming is Green Lake Park, right in the centre of the city. It is a beautiful park, used by the locals who play instruments under the trees, sing (sometimes lovely sometimes severe torture), have choir practices, exercise and dance classes, sit and chat, smoke and play cards or mahjong. It is very much as you would picture a Chinese Park and very nicely lives up to your imagination. The kids also found the contrasting ‘new China’ experience, being put in a huge plastic tube on the lake and then running and jumping to make it spin! I think this has been their highlight so far!

While we were in the park a lovely Chinese guy approached us to have a chat, he is an English teacher in the city and gave us his phone number and email in case we ever needed a translator.

Kunming Museum was another great (and free) activity. As I was fully aware (after Mitchy told me with an incredulous look on his face) China is well known as a place that dinosaur remains have been discovered. The museum has a great room of dinosaur skeletons on display,. The kids were allowed to touch the skeletons which were ‘only’ 200 000 000 years old after all (I‘m sure you can hear Mitchy and I ‘well that wouldn‘t happen in Australia’). Grace and Olivia were then like love struck teenagers not wanting to wash their hands after they touched them! We saw a couple of skeletons that were discovered in Yunnan and our favourite would have to be the one that spewed poison from its ears, it apparently was featured in Jurassic Park.

The Museum also had a gift shop with Ming Dynasty collectables for sale, needless to say that they didn‘t quite fit into the Mitchell holiday budget!

We have been kept amused with some of the Chinglish along the way and are sure that this will keep us entertained. We will just ignore the fact that at least the Chinese are making an attempt at a second (or third) language while we bumble our way through life with ‘Australian’.

We had a great time in Kunming but were ready to leave after 4 days and take on the rest of China so we came to the historic town of Dali.

The bus trip to Dali was supposed to be about 4 to 4 1/2 hours, easy for us seasoned travellers (again in our minds) after our six hour trips, but we woke to pouring rain and roadworks on sections of the highway which meant detours through some amazing but steep, windy, slow roads and villages which pushed the trip out to over six hours. We were told by a Dutch lady at the halfway stop that the bus actually didn’t go to Dali but to what the ticket sellers call New Dali (actually Xiaguan). We had thought that we were wised up to this after reading the Lonely Planet but still got done!! So more than seven hours after we left our hotel we arrived at Dali!

Luckily Mitchy had stocked up on snacks (for our ‘four’ hour trip) at the bus station which consisted of four packets of potato chips and two packets of chocolate biscuits (oreos aren’t just for birthdays!). What we didn’t realise is that the flavours of the chips were bbq rib, corn, seaweed and gherkin, we tasted the bbq rib first and quickly passed them on, not realizing that these were quite flavorsome compared to corn, seaweed or gherkin. The looks on the kids faces were priceless, the chips so awful that all they could do was laugh, a very unusual outcome for hungry Mitchell children.

So here we are in Dali, sure to get lost and befuddled but having a great time!

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Photos

1st Chinese Meal
And We Weren't Hungry after 5 Minutes