Blogs from Kunming, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 34

hard to still write about my travelling now that in fact i'm already sitting here back in vienna in my flat where i can see just a view chinese signs when i take a look out of the window at the chinese restaurant on the other side of the street. but i want to finish this blog as long as my memories are still fresh and i'm not completely back in my every-day life. the sleeper bus from dali stopped at some point around 4 in the morning and i decided to keep on sleeping rather than to make use of this break. when i woke up around 7 again we were still parking at the same point and the suisse guy (whom i falsely introduced as a belgian in my last entry) was standing outside ... read more

We are in China again. Tonight we travel to Beijing, but for the last two days we've been in the capital of Yunnan province. Despite being August in Southern China, it is very mild here. Kunming is known as the 'Spring City' within China because of it's year-round mild, sunny climate and it's elevation of almost 2,000 metres makes it more airy than you'd expect from a provincial capital. Planes, trains and automobiles In leaving Laos, we experienced yet another epic border crossing. After an early morning bus from Luang Prabang, we were faced with a choice between spending a night in a two-horse, one-street town in Northern Laos and entering China the following day by bus, or hitch-hiking to Southern China on the same day. We opted to hitch, and our perseverance paid off. As ... read more

Thursday July 20th I was feeling okay when I woke up so I packed everything and went directly to the bus station. I bought a ticket to Guilin for 15RMB which I knew is overpriced by 5 but I figured it's an express so it should be faster. Well it sure didn't feel like an express at around 50km/hr on the highway but hey, I guess someone somewhere made 5RMB more of profit. I arrived in Guilin an hour and a half later and I tried to figure out when the buses were leaving for Guyiang and Nanning. I was a bit confused at first and went to the wrong bus station but the lady pointed me to the main one. I went there and it took me a while to understand the panel as the ... read more

Well, seeing as we're stuck in Kunming for another couple of days, there's time to upload the photos of our time here. Kunming has certainly been nicer than anywhere else we've visited in China and of all the places to be stranded, we're glad it's here :-)... read more

Today we were off to the bird and flower market with our new friends and this time we didn't leave anything to chance with the buses. We skipped the hotel breakfast which is proving to be too greasy for us and got to the bus stop nice and early. Surprise, surprise, because we weren't in a rush the bus turned up really quickly. It was packed to the brim with commuting Chinese so we took a chance and waited for the next one to turn up, which it did just 2 minutes later. We were at our meeting point with almost 20 minutes to spare :-) David arrived just after 11.00 am as arranged and gave us the happy news that Spring would be coming too. A few minutes later she turned up and said that ... read more