Blogs from Yunnan, China, Asia - page 145

The standard of hawking up in China is truely world class. Sweet old grannies give you a toothy smile in the street and then turn away to noisily flob onto the pavement. The central government has tried to stamp it out (in Shanghai and Beijing at least) in preparation for the 2008 olympics. Fat chance - these guys are pros - if they can't hawk it, it probably wasn't worth hawking in the first place. Our scenic boat trip down the Li river from Guilin to Yangshou was punctuated by regular ripe phlegm expulsions. Sitting downstairs admiring the beautiful scenery, it almost seemed as if a light drizzle was eminating from the cloudless sky. Another trait of the Chinese became very apparent during that trip - they just can't resist posing for the camera. When we ... read more

We are back in civilization.....Lijang in fact. It's a cute little town with traditional chinese rooftops and cobble stone streets.....really touristy but nice. There's your movie set red lanterns and little bridges with koi swimming under them and every corner you turn there's a different color flag and a tour group wearing red hats following it like a guiding star. Another traveller we met correctly dubbed it, "ethnic Disney Land. Tiger leaping gorge: The drive into the starting village was a bit annoying since i was bombarded with the habitual beginning- to- bitter- end cigarette chain smoking that chinese men do. We arrived at Jane's Guesthouse because the lonely planet said it would be a nice place to stay and that she would be helpful in assisting us towards the trail. Turns out Jane is a ... read more

In this blog, Hagit describes here first trek ever.... After 4 days of rain we were pretty depressed and were thinking of cutting out of Yunnan to someplace sunny - we even thought of going to the Thailand beaches and staying there of 4 months. on the fifth day it stopped raining and started snowing! we were very upset and didn't know what to do. we did what always works for Israelis - we decided the weather will improve unilaterally! we decided to take the bus to the trek and than decide. when we entered the village, the sky became clear and it became a beautiful day. we walked from 3:00 to 7:30 up the hills (900m). it was so difficult but the walking sticks Rona and Meir bought us helped so much. the vies where ... read more

12/05/06 Left the senior French group(very nice people)in Kunming, they carried on their trip up north and I made my way down here to YinYuan in YuanJiang district right at the border of HongHe prepecture. A nice lttle town at the altitude about 1500m which surrounded by many small villages. YinYuan is a Bai region but they claimed they didn't wear the same costume as the Bai in Dali, and in fact they didn't wear any costume anymore. YinYuan was a prosperous market town in the old day on the tea trading route from east to west, you can still see some old houses with beautiful lintel, roof tile and woodcraft. Local said there used to be a city wall surrounded the village, and many temples within the area for different believer , but now there ... read more

Just made in to Kunming. I'm almost ready to close the door on my time in Yunnan province, but before I leave, I thought I'd relate one more amusing story about our happenings in Dali. We were sitting at Stella's, our adopted restaurant in Dali, on the porch having a Pizza. With me were Shiran, a recent arrival to China, fresh from Laos, Hadar, with whom I had been travelling since Lijiang and Shannon, a Canadian whom I had met in Lijiang and also joined up with in Dali. We were enjoying a nice evening, winding down from the bicycle trip we had taken earlier (the one from the previous post). Out of nowhere, a Chinese guy who looked to be around his 30s with glasses and a moustache accompanied by a much younger lady walked ... read more