Yunnan Monkey Pox

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I had started coughing on the bus from Tacheng to Lijiang the day after seeing the snub-nosed monkeys. I thought I was just getting a cold or perhaps it was all the cigarette smoke in the bus. In Lijiang the coughing got worse and then I got chills, and they were multiplying. Maybe it was Yunnan Monkey Pox, or Bird Flu, or China Syndrome whatever that is. I haven't been bitten by anything for ages, having been at higher altitudes for more than the last month, so it wasn't anything insect-borne; it must have been a virus. The chills turned into the hot and cold shivery-shakes. I turned the electric blanket on the bed up to full, put on all my clothes and made myself a sauna with the covers. All night I did not sleep, I literally just lay awake for the entire night burning up like a red hot chilli in a bowl of ice-cream until it was time to get up. In the morning I reeked of fever-sweat. If anyone here has sweated out a fever you'll know the foul odour of it. I wondered if it is an adaption to deter predators when at your most vulnerable. Everything in Nature has a place.

The next morning I had the cough and the headache still but the fever had passed. The ride to Kunming was in a mini-van which was more comfortable than a bus so that was alright, and I got the front passenger seat. I slept most of the way but I got the shakes again on the way there. We passed an ostrich farm which was unexpected! In Kunming I stayed at the Cloudland Youth Hostel....for the next six nights. For the first couple of those nights I retained the coughing and the splitting headache, and my body felt like I had been pummeled by Hired Goons. Every bone in my body was sore. I didn't want to go to a Chinese hospital because I figured they would just inject me with penicillin, force handfuls of pills down my throat and feed me pangolin soup. I'd rather just sweat it out – but I also promised myself that if it got worse I would drag myself off to the doctor. The third day in Kunming the shakes came back so bad that when I was eating I had to hold my wrist steady with the other hand in order to guide the chopsticks to the food. Not pleasant. But doctors? Plaah, Never!! The next day the headache was almost gone, my body wasn't sore any more apart for my back (so I could actually walk properly again like a normal person instead of shuffling slowly along like an arthritic zombie!); still had the cough though.

My little problem was that my visa was due to expire on the 28 November, just a few days away. My intention had been to extend it in Leshan just south of Chengdu but now I didn't know if I would make it that far. Extending it in Lijiang was also an option, but that was a nine hour bus ride away. Third option was doing it in Kunming, but extending visas in capital cities is always cited as being a very bad idea because of all the extra stress. I wavered back and forth on what to do, but it was more or less sorted by a terrible bit of news about new laws regarding visa extensions which I had not heard of previously. The new rule says that visa extensions can only add up to a maximum of as many days as were in the original visa. My original visa was 45 days (luckily), my first visa extension was 30 days, which meant that the second extension could only be 15 days maximum. China changes its visa rules like Dennis Rodman changes his hair-styles and this news basically screwed all the rest of my China plans completely, and it also sealed where I had to go for the extension. One of my bags was still in Chengdu, so I would have to be as close to where that was as possible when I got the extension in order to get it quickly (namely Leshan, which is only about two hours by bus from Chengdu).

The last two days in Kunming I hadn't been too bad, just a coming-and-going headache and the cough which doesn't seem to be getting better, but otherwise I was pretty good. I got an overnight train ticket from Kunming to Leshan for the evening of the 25 November. After getting the ticket I discovered that there isn't actually a train station in Leshan – instead you get dropped off in some other station an hour by bus from Leshan. Still, it is several hours closer than continuing all the way to Chengdu, and from Chengdu I'd still have to get a bus to Leshan anyway so I still win.

The only thing I managed to do in the whole of Yunnan was see the snub-nosed monkeys, but they were totally worth getting sick over! In Kunming I did absolutely nothing and saw absolutely nothing. No zoo, no bird market, no museum, no Zoological Institute, no wild birds (except tree sparrows and white wagtails). Maybe on another visit.

I almost didn't make the train. I went to the bus stop round the corner from the hostel and waited, and waited, and waited. No bus came. I knew the longer I left it the more chance there was of missing the train, so I caved and went for a taxi, but none would stop. It really was ridiculous. Eventually I grabbed a motorbike. It was the first motorbike taxi I've used this trip, and it turned out to be the absolute slowest motorbike taxi I have ever been on! I probably could have run to the station faster if I hadn't been out of sorts. I got to the train literally ten minutes before it was due to leave. It was then a fifteen hour ride to a mini-city called Jia Jiang (the “Leshan” of the train ticket). I arrived there about 10am and had an extended conversation with a private taxi driver who tried to make me accept a 200 Yuan ride in his car to Leshan, and finally tried to charge me 30 Yuan to the bus station instead. I'm glad I was no longer feeling sick otherwise I would have been getting really stressed out. After a while I got sick of him and went and found a real taxi which took me to the bus station for 5 Yuan where I got a bus for 8.50 Yuan.

Jia Jiang is about an hour from Leshan (confusingly in Jia Jiang I passed the Leshan City Bank or somesuch....if I hadn't found out in advance that the train didn't actually go to Leshan I would have ended up very confused). Once I got to Leshan I found the Home Inn (at 406 Jiading Middle Road) because for the visa extension one needs to be booked in the not-as-cheap-as-backpackers-prefer-type-accommodations. It wasn't a horrendously expensive hotel but a bit more expensive than what I prefer at 165 Yuan (NZ$33) per night. After checking in and getting my accommodation slip I went straight to the PSB Office and filled in the forms for my visa extension. What I had heard about the new visa rules turned out to be true – the extensions can only total the amount of days of one's original visa. The lady misread my first extension a little and thought I'd been given 28 days (in fact it ran from the 28 Oct to 28 Nov which is 31 days) so gave me 17 days instead of 15 which was slightly better than I had been expecting. But still, it means my visa runs out on the 15 December and then no more China. At least I'm not going to miss not being able to speak Chinese! I mean I'm going to be in other countries where I don't speak the language but there just seems to be something much more difficult about not speaking Chinese compared to not speaking other languages. I don't know what it is. However my very next country is going to be Malaysia where they speak Malaysian and English, both of which I do speak so that's a bit of a bonus.

The visa application takes two days, so yesterday I went to see the Giant Buddha. I'm not normally a “go see the local artifact/attraction from Lonely Planet” guy, but wow that was stupendous. Even the Batman would have had to take a step back if that one came to life and attacked Gotham. I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger Buddha in my life. Very very impressive. I took my binoculars as well of course. Can you believe I haven't even opened my bird book for a full two weeks! The Buddha is carved from a cliff-face and the surrounding crags are covered in trees, and the trees are full of birds. Mostly common stuff but that really beautiful common stuff which I haven't seen for a while, like Pekin robins and yellow-bellied tits. Oriental greenfinches were the first I'd seen in China, and a wryneck was only the second one ever that I've seen. Over the river at the Buddha's feet were hawking pale martins which were my first lifer for ages.

I also found a set of scales yesterday, the first time I've got to weigh myself since leaving New Zealand. I've lost about fifteen kilograms of muscle, which is sort of what I felt like I'd lost but at the same time I thought I would have lost more just recently with being sick. I know my legs have shed a lot of muscle since being sick (before that they were holding up OK without the gym thanks to all the mountain walking!).

Now I'm in Chengdu again. Today I went to the Air Asia office to see if I could extend my flight to match my visa expiry. My flight date is 10 December, visa expiry date 15 December. If I could extend it the extra five days it would give me time to fit in a couple of extra places before I had to leave. Unfortunately it was going to cost me a whopping 2000 Yuan (NZ$400!!!!!) to change the flight date and make up the difference in flight costs, which was twice as much as the actual cost of my original flight. So the tenth of December it is then! I am going to be able to go have a crack at seeing the Guizhou snub-nosed monkey, then it's off to Shanghai. End of China.

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