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Published: January 26th 2011
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Yuanyang!!!
amazing, amazing scenery-playing on the rice paddies! We finally arrived in Kunming after passing through some rather lovely scenery, and then headed to cloudland, a lovely little hostel which had brilliant maps of the area and directions on where to go. That day we went to the 'flower and bird market' which in fact was an awesome street where we ate crickets and bought quite a few lil prezzies for home..including real authentic, 100% peanut, peanut butter nomtious! There were also a load of places selling dogs! puppies, and birds which was quite sad.
On new years eve we started off very early, and headed off to dragons gate, a reputedly beautiful set of carvings and buildings on the side of a ginormous mountain. It was quite an epic climb, especially as we hadn't really adjusted to the altitude yet, and we hadn't managed to find any food that morning...but it was quite impressive, we got far too many pictures of the scenery, and managed to get off the beaten track and into a little village off to the side of dragons gate, where we got some lovely views over more mountains! There do seem to be rather a lot of mountains around these parts... That evening,
Twin Dragon bridge
or whatever it was called, just outside jianshui, and rather pretty!!! we went looking for a barbecue place that I was absolutely certain was in kunming...I was wrong and we ended up searching for about half an hour before finding somewhere that was still open at half 9.. After eating we had a little wander and stumbled across a big open square with loads of people playing musical instruments, or just playing music from their scooters and dancing around in big circles, there was also karaoke, and we were entertained by a policeman on roller-skates who wouldn't stop singing... After enduring another rendition of some very old school Chinese love song, we wandered a bit more, and found a man, who, for the very reasonable sum of 10 kuai painter my Chinese name in pictures, which was quite cool, as it actually looks quite good!!!
The next morning at early o clock we set off to Jianshui, an area known for some awesome underground caves and, among others, the double dragon bridge. This was also rather good fun, and we got the chance to wander around some chinese fields, with water buffalo ploughing the fields, and some really nice people happy to show us what they were doing. We met
A Fisherman
lovely old dude who had been out catching little fish...in his suit...and then proceeded to cycle off on his rickety old bicycle. up with one man whilst we were trying to get some cool pictures who had been in the flooded fields (I presume they're rice fields) catching tiny little fish. After beckoning us over to where he had left his bicycle, he proceed to show us these amazing little fishes he had caught and which are apparently absolutely delicious! He then hopped on his bicycle (i forget to mention that he is wearing a suit whilst doing all of this) and happily cycles off. The bridge itself was an ever so slight let down...there was pretty much no need for a bridge, as the water seemed paddleable, though it did look rather cool!
As for the caves, they were great fun, it seemed that everybody was attached to a tour group...except for us, so we wandered freely, and got some really nice pictures, always avoiding the gawking groups of chinese tourists. The caves themselves are amazing, with the most incredible rock formations, which really did look incredible! We had lots of fun playing with our cameras trying to get the colours to come out in the relative darkness...with varied success. There are people there who each year climb these caves,
Caves!!!
amazingly beautful!!! (they get pretty ridiculously high) in order to retrieve swallow nests, which they make into soup...kinda weird! But we got a good demonstration of a guy climbing up one bit, which was quite exciting!
After the caves we had booked into a hostel in duoyishu, a small village way up in the mountains in yuanyang rice paddies. We had intended to get there early, but, as always with Chinese buses, our carefully made travel plans were not to be. We got on the reputedly 1 hour bus, only to find out that this one went to each and every little village on the way, over some really quite entertaining bumpy roads- I don't know how the little things stay in one piece! We finally arrived in Nansha, the wrong town after about 4 hours of bottom numbing bouncing, only to find out that this bus, which I had been assured was going on to xinjie, is now not going that far... As a result we had to get a taxi for the hour journey to xinjie, with some quite exciting overtaking on cliff roads, in the thick fog, and the dark, with our driver just holding down the horn
Alcofrolic
Hugging that champagne close! and hoping oncoming traffic would hear it. If it wasn't for the bumps we would have been on the edge of our seats, as it was we were just clinging on to anything!
Anyway, we finally arrived in xinjie, with no way to carry on to the hostel that we wanted to stay in, we had to check into a little place with no hot water, damp everything, and some very dodgy looking mould. We decided to pop out to grab some food and were confronted with what I can only describe as a Victorian era mining village...if it weren't for the huge lorries full of rocks slowly crawling past. The fog was so thick that it was positively eerie, with noises muffled and thin lights shining weakly through the fog from shopkeepers determined to brave the cold, wet night and serve the few workers wandering the streets. We eventually found a small hovel where a middle aged couple were shouting at some poor girl who looked about 13 to cook food faster, and to do this and that. We took seats and the couple immediately took to ordering us some food- even though I think there were actually
Dilemma
erm...hun, there appears to be a water buffalo in the way... only two dishes to choose from- fried rice, and some sort of soup. The food was actually quite nice, and we retreated to our rooms, ready for some sleep. I was convinced by Clare that we really should wash (it had been a few days), and so we went about getting two flasks of hot water, which we would have to mix with cold water in the sink and then splash ourselves clean. I went first, being the man...and actually managed a quite decent job I thought...god knows how Clare managed to wash her hair with shampoo!
The next day, we collected a bag of fruit and some lovely bits and bobs from a tiny Chinese bakery, and set off in a minibus to duoyishu, we had finally found out how to get there, and we were just hoping that the fog that still completely covered xinjie would have disappeared by the time we'd got higher up. As it was Duoyishu was actually completely clear, and offered some incredible views. We spent the day wandering rice paddies, encountering loads of lovely old rice farmers who we rebuilding rice paddies and chatting as best we could- considering that they didn't
P1020111
awwwwwwwww really speak any mandarin at all. At various points we found our paths blocked by water buffalo, pigs, trees and landslides, but it was all quite fun really! The views were unbelievable, these mountains have been completely turned into rice machines, with no space for anything else, and even the smallest little slice of land is used to grow a little bit more rice. The amount of time and manual labour it must have taken to convert whole mountains to be like this is incomprehensible.
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jamie
non-member comment
Thats insane