Advertisement
Published: January 13th 2008
so i'm back in kunming. let me quickly get you up to date........
i got to dali and breathed a huge sigh of relief. it was so nice to be somewhere familiar, and to know that i'd be seeing mickey and other familiar faces really really soon. i checked into a hostel and hit the streets. chris had gone to find somewhere with a single room, but i'd decided i wanted to travel a bit more on the cheap than that. it was getting dark, and i was hungry.
walking down the cobblestones of huguo lu, i was greeted with lots of familiar sights. old bai ladies coming up to me and trying to sell me weed. bright-coloured embroidery and indigo batik hanging up everywhere. tarnished silver jewellry, japanese tourists, the lazy book cafe. it was wonderful. i headed over to renmin lu, which, along with huguo lu, comprises the tourist district, and is also one of the few places in dali where i spent most of my time. this was largely due to such bars as the bad monkey, the vodka bar (aka daliba), 50 bowls, and various eateries, including seeds, the vegetarian cafe next door to bad monkey.
i figured it was too early for anyone to be in the bars yet, but i thought i'd walk past the bad monkey just in case. as i got closer, i saw a big crowd of people outside. they were playing music, i realised, and when i saw one dreadlocked head (shaved at the sides and bleached at the front) appear above the rest, as its owner stood up on a table, i started walking a lot quicker. hearing guitar, mandolin and double bass, i thought to myself - if mickey's not here, he's either dead or not in dali.
sure enough, there he was, bopping away to the music, beer in one hand. i had to poke him a few times and finally say "oi cunt!" before he actually noticed me, but when he did, there was a happy reunion with lots of hugs and smiles. we spent most of the rest of the evening drinking and catching up. he introduced me to the musicians, who turned out to be a band called the quebec redneck bluegrass project, now based in kunming. awesome! what with the anarchy patches and weird half-shaved dreadlocked hair, and black hoodies, they reminded me strongly of crew back home. clearly i was among kindred spirits.
chris found me there, and a fun night was passed at the bad monkey. mickey introduced me to christina, a girl from hong kong who we're now travelling with, and i met chuck, nick and didier from the band, and their friend michelle, visiting from montreal. the rest i would meet later. i also caught up with fei-fei again, a french woman i met last time in dali, who's lived in china for over 8 years.
the next few days passed the same way they always do in dali. beer, hash, weed, not enough sleep. endless parties and music and friends. it was great to see kiki, vanessa, and maya from the vodka bar again, and go and do some shots with them. i spent a day walking up the mountain with fei-fei to compensate a little for the hedonistic lifestyle i'd fallen back into, and then went back to her place and got to actually cook some food. it was fantastic. mickey and christina buggered off to reili, near the myanmar border, to party for a few days, and when they got back, we were all set to leave dali. where to next?
kunming.
this wasn't exactly the plan. we wanted to go to chengdu. but the guys from quebec had offered to put us up in kunming and show us some cool places to play and see music. and we had to go back there to get the train anyway, so we thought, what the hell.
we got to kunming, and after much hassle with phones, we eventually got to the apartment and settled in. we were met by cedrik, the double bass player from the group, who was hanging out at home alone. jp, didier and nick were away from kunming doing visa things, and chuck was at school, michelle was out, so it was just us. the apartment was messy enough to make me feel at home, but not disgusting. and cedrik was very hospitable. we felt that we had arrived in the right place.
so, onto the vegan pies. we went out with chuck and michelle our first night, and saw the speakeasy bar, and another bar. i made friends with the french band who played there and invited them to come hang out with us. definitely a fun evening. the next day, chuck woke up and announced that he felt like making pies, and what did we think? pies sounded fantastic is what we thought. so he and mickey and christina went on a shopping mission whilst i finished making mickey's scarf. earlier that morning i'd made a pair of gloves for michelle. the entire crew will be kitted out in red and black crochet accessories by the end of this.
they came home with all sorts of food. first mickey became the pancake master and made banana pancakes. then chuck got started on the pasta sauce, whilst i made some vegan pastry. the boys chopped fruit, we baked the pastry blind and then filled the first of the pies, stuck it in the oven, and hoped for the best.
amongst this there was much imbibing of various substances, and camaraderie, and music, of course. night time came, and we ate pasta and the amazing sauce chuck had made. then it was the moment of truth, with the pie coming out of the oven. would a strawberry and apple pie without much sugar, made by people who'd never made a strawberry apple pie before, taste any good?
the answer was yes (although a few people were disappointed at the lack of icecream). there was a lot more juice than anticipated, so we started by sucking some of that out with straws before serving up the massive pie. somehow, between six of us (me, mickey, christina, chuck, cedrik and michelle), we managed to finish most of the pie. time for the next one to go in! we were joined by nicole (jp's girlfriend and also a great singer/guitarist), and ivana (cedrik's girlfriend), and the pie feast continued. everyone was far too full to eat any more when the second pie came out, so we left it to sit for a while, and started to bake the third, a mixed fruit concoction with stewed apple, strawberry, loquat and pear.
eventually, as the night wore on, the second pie was eaten, and lots more beer and vodka was drunk. people took turns playing songs. finally it was decided that it was bedtime. the third pie and the leftover pasta would make a great breakfast the next day.
other food adventures so far have included the day of pancakes. yesterday we started out with banana pancakes, moved on to strawberry and banana, and then things got a little crazy. mickey suggested banana and chilli. chuck said they had some masala powder, why not try that? then we thought we should try something else and i said, not soy sauce, so of course chuck said we should make a soy mustard honey banana pancake. it actually didn't taste too bad.
things got a little more sensible in the end when coffee was brewed, and some extra added to the pancake mix, along with the obligatory bananas and a little bit of chocolate drink powder.
i think my favourite was the banana masala pancake. definitely a winner.
we plan to try out some mexican food next.
so that's a snippet from my life at the moment. we are leaving for chengdu tomorrow, and will stay a week. after that, christina goes back to hong kong for uni, and mickey and i will make our way back to kunming, to stay with the quebec crew a little longer and play a little more music. they're headed off on a motorbike journey for three months, so mickey and i will probably end up house-sitting for them whilst they're away.
i am in domestic bliss.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.129s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 41; dbt: 0.098s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
kt
non-member comment
food food food
it's all about food save some good times for me