Kunming and the luck of the Dragon's Gate

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Geo: 25.0389, 102.708

That was unusual. At 8.40 am there was still no sign of Lotus and given the extraordinary punctuality of every "friendly China guide" it was almost cause for concern. At 8.45 Lotus pulled up outside the hotel, sitting side saddle on a motor cycle! Apparently there had been an accident on the freeway (surprise surprise with the way everyone drives!) and after being stationery in the bus for so long, Lotus jumped off and hailed a scooter....."it's the local way" Lotus reassured us.

First stop in the morning (if you don't count the interminable delays in the traffic) was the Yunnan Nationalities Village. This theme park showcased the different ethnic minorities of China. Currently 26 minorities are represented with small villages stablished in the park. The villagers actually live and work in the park. Each village usually includes a series of village homes, handicrafts, temples of worship, costumes, dances and music. There is plenty to see and plenty to watch and plenty to learn in these villages which are a microcosm of the colourful and complicated ethnic diversity of the region.

In fact, it is a mecca for school children on excursion. And there were thousands of them. Many of them are new fans for Mac....he spent his time smiling for young school children and having his photo taken while providing them with novel practice of their English.

A feature of China for me has been the "children". I continually comment that "there are no naughty children in China". Each baby and toddler has always been accompanied by a "number of adults"..adoring parents, doting grandparents...so you don't see children crying or unattended or without attention. Scrap all those notions today. In "bunches" at school there were plenty of naughty children in China. Actually, mostly naughty boys!

Out of the 1021 boys that we saw I'd say as many as 1019 of them had purchased a sword, an axe or an inflatable hammer. They were swinging and whacking at anything they could reach including two defenceless cormorants that were tied up on display! I didn't see them take on the elephant though. Maybe this is an extension of the "indulged male child syndrome.....I don't know....but I have changed my mind about "no naughty children in China".

And the litter! We haven't seen rubbish anywhere in China....but wherever the kids sat down to eat....it was a sea of paper and junk. @Andy's mantra "popper wrappers are not our friends" would have been lost somewhere between translation and apathy! But true to form, there were hordes of sweepers and cleaners who just kept magically appearing with brush brooms, rubbish chop sticks ( that's my description of the picker uppera tool they use), dust pants and eons of patience and perseverance.

The afternoon saw us reviewing Kunming from a different perspective. Our lofty views of the heaving metropolis of Kunming (a mere 8 million resident) came from the hand hewn pathways, grottos and bridges of the breathtaking West Hill of Kunming. At this spot we are about 2 200 metres above sea level. Kunming is sited in a sprawling basin that hugs an expansive (heavily polluted) lake and from West Hill - on a clear day (no pollution)The launch point for the walk is via a cable car - a slow creeping grind up the vertical cliffs that give panoramic views of The largest lake in the Yunnan Province, Dian Lake. Interestingly, the area of the lake is the equivalent of the area of Singapore!

The holy grail of this adventure is to visit the Dragon Gate. It is said (not sure who actually said it) that if you pass the pearl of the Dragon Gate good fortune is sure to follow. The Dragon Gate to the south of Sanqing Pavilion and is actually a grotto dug into the precipitous cliffs and is accessed by a narrow tunnel that overhangs the sheer cliffs. The steps, the rock face, the tunnels, the grottos were all carved from the stone. Taoist priest Wu Laiqing, famous mason Yang Rulan and his son Yang Jitai in the Qing Dynasty spent as long as 72 years to complete the reject(1781-1853). Mac was ducking and weaving under the roof and ledges and quipped that they could have made it tall enough for foreigners to pass through. That little adjustment would have taken another 15 years.

The walk began with the ascent of the first flight of stairs - exactly 73 stairs..one for each demons you will meet in life. This led to pavilions which featured relief carvings in stone and inscriptions added over time by famous scholars. This climb is not for the feint hearted but does provide sweeping views across Dian Lake and the city of Kunming.

The return journey is just as slow but ends with a cable car ride to the base. We stayed on board and inched our way slowly across Dian Lake back to the nationalities Museum. The cable car ride is just shy of 2 kms in length. From the cable car we got to see first hand the severity of the pollution of the lake and the breadth of measures being implemented to try and improve the water quality. The main pollutant source of the lake is from the excrement of the 8 million people that hug the shore.

A quick drive home and some relief as we were not treated by the toeture of more food!

Can't begin to describe how wonderful it was to have a night off from dinner. We did McDonalds" in Lijiang but in Kunming we branched out and purchased a half pineapple from the street vendor and a frozen juice drink from the Juice Co vendor behind the hotel. What a treat. We are slurping and munching our way through our personal take away in the luxury of our room while catching up on the search for flight MH370 on our only English speaking TV channel. For the astounding price of 5 yuan (about one dollar) someone has grown and harvested, peeled this pineapple and then removed every piece of skin "pit by pit"! A work of art. And a welcomed relief from way too much food!

Dinner was accompanied by the birthday scratchies. Can you believe we haven't had time to scratch ourselves or these potential winners until tonight. Imbued with the luck of rubbing the pearl at the Dragon's Gate for exactly three seconds we were sure that luck was on our side. And this was bolstered by Mac rubbing the Gambler's Stone at the Stone Forest. But you guessed it, after Space Invaders, Set for Life, Bingo and Crosswords...the grand total of our luck was ZERO $s and a bed full of scratchie shavings. Phtt to the luck of the Dragon's Gate.

I think my luck was that - for the first day in China, I did all my walking without Mac's help. Every step up and down all under my own steam. Feeling very lucky!

We have done the luggage shuffle again and burdened with an ever growing bundle of dirty clothes we have done the classic @Mindy sit and zip and are packed ready for a retreat tomorrow. Moving closer to the Coast And sunny climes....but I must say, Kunming has turned on unseasonably hot weather for us hovering around the 30 C mark ....Lotus said that the news is reporting that this is a record! We take the sunshine wherever we go.

Pedometer reading: 19 957
Temperature: 32 C

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