Around Yunnan 2015

Asia » China » Yunnan » Kunming
July 7th 2015

Published: July 7th 2015

Edit Blog Post

Shan Yang

The Lake at Bao Zhu Si

Kunming's most infamous hill climb: Bao Zhu Si. Riders are rewarded with a nice clean lake at the top in which one can go for a swim

CYCLING AROUND KUNMING

As many of you already know, I have become a pretty avid cyclist. Living in Kunming provides some excellent places to ride and explore. Just 15km or so from my front door brings one into the real countryside of Southwest China. Lacking of cars and trucks, the routes usually get held up with herds of goats, water buffalo, and dairy cows. The occasional flock of geese or random chickens running about also make it a fun place to ride. It has been fun to cycle this year starting in February to watch how the crops cycle, and seeing when (and where!) our food is being produced. Early this year saw the planting of wheat, which was harvested about a month or so ago. The farmers take the stalks and beat them against wooden beams and collect the kernels that fall off. The remaining kernels are harvested by having farmers place the stalks on the roads and the passing cars drive over them crushing the kernels out. The latest harvest was this weekend: cabbage. Truck traffic was higher than usual as trucks packed to the brim with Asian cabbage roared through the countryside back into Kunming. Tobacco and

Resting...

Not a bad place for a small picnic

corn are well on their way now. "Knee high by the fourth of July"? Psh, in Yunnan, it's 7 feet if it's an inch! They'll probably harvest at the end of the month. As far as cycling is concerned, the roads are a bit worn, but make for good riding. Lots of hills also add to the challenge. I just surpassed 50,000m of vertical climbing on the year and this weekend I should break 3,000km. These stats do not include my daily 10km work/errand runs around town. That's good riding!

HEIJING: THE OLD SALT TOWN

The latest adventure took me about 3 hours west of Kunming to the old town of Heijing. And at over 2,000 years, I do mean old! Heijing was the economic center of Yunnan for over 1,000 years all the way up until the start of the 20th century. The basis of it's economic success was salt. Merchants would come from all over to trade and transport salt from Heijing to all southwest China. The merchants brought with them other products from far away: silk, texts, performers, education, language, and ideas. Heijing prospered for a long time. Salt production got supplanted by the far

Dear in the Tobacco

easier method of harvesting sea salt on the coastal cities in the east. Heijing's salt production centers became overpriced and obsolete. The town was forgotten. Little has changed since salt production left about 100 years ago. It is one of the very few towns in China I've visited that had zero modern buildings in it. Not even the brutalist architecture of the Cultural Revolution made it into Heijing. I was quite pleased. I arrived around 1030am to Heijing Train Station located a couple of kilometers outside of town. How to get to town? By taxi of course! Whoop! No taxis here; horse cart only. Giddy-up! After a bumpy fart-filled ride to town, I wandered for a good hour looking for the perfect hotel at the perfect price. I finally found a good one on a hillside at the edge of town. $10/night seemed fair for a clean room, bathroom, TV, private balcony over looking the river. A note to those planning to go riding in a horse cart. I got front row center in my 10 passenger cart. Bad plan. The horses fart a lot! Like, a lot! Not only that, but a horse tail swishes a lot when trotting

Wet Ride

Even rainy days provide nice views

and the tails are a lot stronger and stiffer than you might think. I was wearing shorts and it's like getting whipped in the legs with every trot. The driver found this most amusing. I looked around for reactions to the constant farting; no one seemed phased. Nothing phases the Chinese. After unpacking and chatting with the owner of the hotel, I went a-wandering. Heijing is really nice. The weather was hot and dry and, combined with the vegetation around, it had a very Mediterranean feel about the place. Olive trees, agave (ALMOST in bloom), and pomegranates were a few of the notable plants in the area. The old buildings and narrow stone roads through the town added to the atmosphere. I walked 2km outside of town to find the old salt production facility. It isn't really being used much anymore and has been converted into a kind of museum. They run the facility only for demonstrations these days, but the process is the same as it is anywhere for refining well salt. Drill wells about 1000m down to the salty brine. Pull it up, boil it and keep scraping the residue off the top. What remains is your pure

Train Around Heijing

This rail line is the only one in China utilizing the spiral railway technique. Neat!

salt. I was really hoping the factory would be up in running like in Sichuan's Zigong (a salt town I visited last year). I wandered back along the railroad tracks to town. The railroad through the valley is quite an engineering marvel in and of itself. S-bends, spiraling climbs, and pretty much nothing but bridges and tunnels for about 200km. Very impressive!

After wandering back to town I went temple hopping to see the 3 remaining temples in the area. The most impressive of which was on the edge of town and was purpose built to support all major religions of the day: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. All were represented and welcome to pray together at this temple. Not nearly as impressive, but had a much better view was Feijaisi also on the edge of town. One had to walk way up onto the side of the valley to this temple and it offered a great view of Heijing and the surrounding countryside. I kept wandering up past the temple to the top of the valley wall. On top it flattened out a bit which provided more farmland for crops. I sat down at an old grave site that

Horse Cart

Note the agave

was dedicated to some of the wealthier merchants of the past. A curious dairy farmer stared at me and eventually gathered the courage to have a chat. Hasn't met too many foreigners. He met a couple of Japanese tourists a few years ago, but I was the first American. He was a local guy and didn't have much to say beyond that. The staring continued, though. Eventually he took his cows (a mama cow and her new calf) back home for the evening. It was getting late in the day so I headed back down for some dinner. I had a cold bowl of soup-less noodles for dinner. It was REALLY hot, so I wasn't in the mood for anything too heavy. There are two local specialties in Heijing: Huang dou mian and dou gan. (Yellow bean noodles and bean cakes. Dou = bean). The noodles aren't made from bean, but rather they are noodles complimented with soybeans (huang dou). Not bad. The bean cakes were quite tasty but REALLY spicy. I don't know how I escaped eating three cakes without a diarrhea attack, but hey!

That night I wandered the streets and really enjoyed the peace and quiet

My Horse Cart

Note my train leaving me behind in the background

No bars, no nightclubs, no night market, just silence. Frogs and crickets were the only sound other than footsteps and the occasional television set. The streets were lit with traditional red Chinese lanterns, too. So nice! The following morning I had some soybean noodles and walked to the train station. I opted for a stroll rather than the horse cart so I could slowly admire the countryside. Bought my ticket to the next town (Huangguayuan or Cucumber Garden) for 4rmb or about $0.75. 2 hour ride; a very good deal. The idea was to get to the Yuanmou Earth Forest from what was (geographically) a much closer train station. The train ride was hot, crowded, and noisy. Exactly what you expect from a 75 cent train ride through the Chinese countryside. It was fun actually. I chatted with a guy that had just graduated from college and was heading back to his hometown. A proud arrival for sure! Might be the first of his family to ever attend college (this is the case with a number of my students...). I arrived in Cucumber Garden and got off the train along with all of the farmers. There were only farmers getting

Heijing's 7 Horse Bridge

off the train. All of them had their basket/backpacks ready for the cabbage harvest I think. I wandered through the village, which was a lot less picturesque than Heijing (which means Black Well by the way), and received a fair amount of attention from the locals. I tried in vain to find a ride to the earth forest. Everyone knew it, but no one was going there. I tried hitching, "I'm not going to the earth forest." "Yes, I know, but you're going in that direction, I just want to get closer." "I don't understand". 😞 . The drivers wanted over 100rmb to take me there and not take me back. Poo. I gave up. I got a ride to another (much bigger) town that had the regional bus terminal so I could get back to Kunming. I talked with the driver for a bit. It would be much easier to get to the bus terminal and get a 10rmb bus from there. Bah. Next time. I had already missed the last bus of the day to there so I gave up and bought a ticket home. My seatmate was excellent. A quite attractive woman that just minded her business

Heijing on the River

and kept quiet the whole time. Good bus driver, too. I've had a lot of hot-dog bus drivers in the past that like to "make time". My seat was in the front row, so I appreciated the slow and steady pace. It was my first time to Kunming's Northwest Bus Terminal and I was pleased to find out there was a city bus direct to my bus stop. Home sweet home!

SUMMER VACATION

The semester has finally come to a close as I am about to go proctor my last final exam of the spring term. A few of my classes are graduating this semester, too. We had a ceremony last week and it was a lot of fun. Before it was odd being on the teaching end of the classroom. Now I'm on the teaching end of a graduation photo. Fun!

My semester ended a week earlier than planned, so I have about 10 days off before heading to Vietnam. I have no idea what to do with myself with 10 days of nothing. One day will be admin work for school, one day will be packing, so what to do? I'll post next week with