CHINA Travel

Kunming
The city its self was pretty good, I spent 5 days here which really was a lot of time but it was nice to get into a routine after being on the road for a month, waking up and going to the same street for breakfast (steamed dumplings, vegetable stuffed bread, and noodles), going back out for lunch, usually something I can point at, and then again for dinner. The city of 1.4 million felt small and comfortable, I enjoyed my time in Kunming. It was a real relaxed city which had everything i needed, department stores, grocery stores, a hostel with tones of information, showeres with HOT WATER, and it was clean. After doing Nepal and India it was nice to be in a more citalized place (not to say china is all that civilized but the accomadation is. Cities like Kunming are easy for me to spend time in, everything is easy, transportaion, food, living, that was somthing i missed and longed for and found it in Kunming for me a good way to recharge the batteries. Simply a relaxed city (minus the very histerical club culture).

YuanYang Rice Terreces
The trip down south to Yuanyang (from Kunming) is a mere 5 hours stinky bus ride filled with people "hawking," Spitting, chewing seeds, eating peanuts, hard boiled eggs, vacumm packed duck legs (room temperature of course), and my personal favorite, chain smokin' cigarettes, it was a great ride! Yuanyang was a hidden little gem though, the town it's self a rather not so blissful place but on sun rise a hour bus ride led me and 3 others deep into the outer edges of the town. In the pitch black the driver pulls over and ushers us out motioning for us to eat. Steam rising out of the conventional Chinese steamer, fresh buns, and hand made noodle soup was on the menu at 5:45am and it was all quite nice. We may have missed the sun rise but really with the amount of Fog and Haze that blanketed the valley it really didn't matter. Note: I hear the winter is the best time to go, less fog, better view, and all the pool are filled with water. Anyway after breakfast we hiked down in to a rural village and into the terraces which were breath taking (I hear this area is the larges rice producing region in the world, don’t quote me on that). Seeing the absolutely breath taking amount of work and toil that goes into producing the terraces, the harvesting process, and ultimately the rice, which is all done by hand is something that can’t be explained unless you really see it your self. Hills filled with terraces, something I found that can not be captured by photograph (shitty whether aside), it is impossible to capture green hills as far as you can see layered from top to bottom in hand carved terraces.
Sun set was rather uneventful as well but the views and the experience was first class. For me it was nice to escape the city of Kunming (regardless of how much I liked it), spending an afternoon in a rural village was a great experience as well, eating local food (lots of pointing, rubbing your stomach in approval, and smiling, Not a lot of talking), it was a great time.

Dali
The bus ride from Kunming to Dali was pretty good, despite the standard issues involved with Chinese bus travel as explained above. The views were great, I’m a big fan of sitting by the window and watching the scenery pass me by, it’s like television for me, accept you are actually doing/ going somewhere. On arrival in Dali (with my new Chinese friend/tour guide/interpreter) we boarded a bus and was off to the Old City which is where all tourist go, all confined with in the walls of the old city, cobble stone-esk streets, beautiful Chinese architecture, it was a great little city. Very hard to explain but a little too touristy for me, my favorite part of the day was waking up early, stumbling down the street to the local vendors and devouring the local street food.
Markets are another passion of mine, no matter what seems to be happening there, it is always fun to get lost in a food market, bean curd (jelly like salad), fresh baked breads (TONS AND TONS OF CHINESE BREADS， something that I was very surprised about. Fruits, vegetables, noodles, and countless different kinds of noodles, some hand made, some not, but all very delicious. Being a tourist isn’t bad but I do have one regret, NOT renting a bike and riding out of town, I love seeing what the locals are doing, not just the city locals, the rural locals are really what interest me.

Lijiang
Now this was a city I liked, MUCH more touristy than Dali, Packed streets during the day, filled with tourists (mostly Chinese tourists). This is the picturesque OLD Chinese city that you imagine when you think of how it was back in the day. Clearly now things have changed and old houses and building have been restored, cheesy crap, craft stores replace peoples homes, and stores that used to exist, but the feel, the look, the architecture is all still there. All the streets lined with canals, water ways that run through the city, and intense connection of canals that used to bring fresh water to the locals and still actually does. Now a bit more polluted with your neighbors waste and tourist trash, but none the less water is supplied to the people through the 2000+ year old water system (I don’t think the locals realize that “shit flows down stream” because you can have a dude cleaning a fish in the water and a 100 feet down have someone washing their cloths… interesting concept).
The city was great and yet another market for me to explore, this one was much better, with great fresh noodles in the morning, a special local bread made 25feet from the front door of my hostel, a sweet bread filled with honey and nuts, and a savory filled with green onion and ham, soups, sweets, and more stir fry. Roaming the empty streets early in the morning, followed by the market during the day (let tourist have the streets of the old city), and then back into the old city by night when the bulk of people have left. One day of touring, exploring, and photographs, the other day of relaxing, eating, sting in sun and drinking some “dali” beer, relaxing, enjoyable day.

Shangri La
Now this was a City much different from the rest, the Bus from Dali to Shangri La started off normal, rolling through rice fields, rural towns and villages but quickly became more and more interesting as time passed. Hills turned into mountains, rice fields turned into plains, and the golden color of the sea of rice changed into the rolling green mountain filled with evergreens, steams became rivers, the farming of pigs turned into that of Yak, and the warmer relaxing Lijiang whether because cold mountain air.
Getting off the Bus I realized this was the Closest point to Tibet I was going to get with out crossing into the almost untouchable of Chinese provinces. The Culture, the people, the feeling, the temperature of Shangri La was that of Tibet. It reminded me a bit of Nepal (which was once a Tibetan province), it was a cold but beautiful place. Here I rented a bike and went for a ride (6 hours) but a hill, down a valley, and into a rural simple but difficult way of life; filled with constant farming and caring for the land, a literally untouched culture. I enjoyed being in Shangri La but my sad realization of crossing into Tibet from this town was yet again shattered, I’m 0 for 2 in my attempts to get to the highest plateau in the world. Shangri La follows the same system of Dali and Lijiang, a modern city with a small section the Old City filled with some tourist, old old stone streets filled with narrow passages, linked with a old water system which runs through the town, cheaper guest houses, old architecture, and uniquely ancient Chinese feel to it.

Chengdu and Jiuzhaigou
Chengdu is a big polluted city, seeing the blue sky or sky at all is a rare occurance. Chengdu had a couple of attactions that were pretty Local. Seeing the Pandas (which i opted out of, i know, i'm lame), going to see the Big Buhdda in Leshan which i did go to see, along with other not so exciting things here and there. My mission in Chengdu was to hit the Chongquing HOTPOT (i should have gone to chongquing for this but i ran out of time), anyways it is a spicy hell broth filled with mouth numbing peppercorns that are native to the area. unfortunatly the server gave me and a couple of guys the watered down version, at first i was bummed at this but after i was able to eat my whole meal with out having my mouth fall off i was kind of apprieciative. there IS NO REASON to have it much spicier than i had it, from then on it's just braggin' rights.
Jiuzhaigou National Park
it is about a 12 hour bus from Chengdu and along this road you can see the real results of the Earth Quake, and it is absolutly horrible. 1000's of holmes were just leveled, streets were washed away, buildings leveled, and towns distroyed. In some areas there are 100's of chinese relief tents poped up all over town to act as temperary support to those who have no where to go. for the most part these were NOT cities, they were rural towns, homes that people have lived in for centuries, and now have nothing, a bit sad.
Jiuzhaigou is absolutly breath taking, I was both fortunate and unfortunate on my trip there. the day i visited the park it was raining, cloudy, cold, and obviously not the best time to wonder the national park, on the other side it was autum and all the leaves were changing color, the water in the lakes and rivers were equaly as spectacular in the rain as they would have been in the sun. Jiuzhaigou is fantastic, i would highly recomend it to anyone in the sichuan area. I would go as far as saying one of the best parks i have been two in my life.

Beijing
Again you may think i'm lame but NO i didn't go to the Forbiden City, too crowded too many tourists, too many people. Summer palace was like going to a big park, relaxing and enjoyable once you get out of the masses of tour groups and head to edges of the estate. Tienamen square was really a big square not too much more than that, historicaly it was cool to visit but when your on more of a culinary mission in beijing things like this don't really seem to get me all worked up. Beijing was all about eating duck for me and i probably had some kind of duck every day i was there, fantastic, the hutangs (sp) were nice to go down and check out, the night market with wierd food was pretty lame, i'm more pumped to go get the real stuff in south east asia, where scorpions are actually on the menu not just there for shock value!
The great wall was a "Great" experience, i took a 4 hour bus out of the city to Simiti which was really worth doing, walked the wall for 4 hours before heading back. The wall was partially restored so when you walk along the crumbled pieces and see the century old stone that was placed there way before your time, you look into the distance and see the expance of how "great" or large it was, you get a bigger understanding of what went into building it and how massive it really is. I liked going to the wall, OH and there were NOT that many tourist which is nice.

Yangshuo
where i sit at the moment is definitely a summer location (not a november hotspot), the landscape is covered in limestone hills carved out by the Li River. it is absolutly stunning, it is what you picture when you think about green lush hills and a lazy river winding through a spectacular vally of hills. Bike rides through small villages, a bamboo raft down the river, and a hike through fields or orange and pamello trees were all things worth doing. Even taking a wrong turn winding up in small villages ancient villages was a awesome experience, i think i would like to return here in the summer months, and float the Li River better form (inner tube and a 12pk of beer!).

Hong Kong
HK Is just a 12hr sleeper bus away, i have two days there and then out to KL (malaysia).

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