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5 August: Kunming

We were up by 07h30, off to breakfast at the same little restaurant we had been introduced to by Wong. Breakfast was a spicy type of noodle, both Leanne and I opted for it. After breakfast we headed to the train station, passing a tea shop on the way with tea in the shape of pumpkins stacked on top of one another. We needed to purchase tickets to Dali, we had read that on the sleeper buses, your bags are often stolen or slashed, hence the safer option. Alas it was not to be! We met up with some English travelers who were headed for Chengdu, but their train was delayed, we chatted with them for a few minutes, now becoming trained to get as much information in as short a time as possible. We asked a man standing in one of the queues where we needed to go to get a ticket to Dali. He was able to assist us in manageable English and told us in which queue to stand, here we waited for 20 minutes before the queue moved to the front, I should say that there were 20 queues all with at least 40 people in each. When we got to the the front we were informed by the official that there were no longer any sleeper train tickets available for today or the next. Disappointed we headed for the bus station where we purchased two tickets for a sleeper bus leaving at 21h20.

Admin sorted out we headed for Grand View Park. We needed to take bus 52 which was not to far from our hotel, this didn't take to long and asking some commuters to obtain confirmation, we waited until it arrived. It didn't take long and within 5 minutes we were on a bus, we showed the lady driving the bus where we wanted to go and she indicated she would tell us when we arrived. A little later a man started a conversation with us and it turned out he was also heading to the park. I had been consciously taking note of China with respect to its comparability to other Asian cities and its infrastructure. The bus we were traveling in had only 102 000 km, it was fitted with two plasma TV's and at all stations a recording would announce where we were as well as display the Mandarin and English names on a display board.

Going from stop to stop never took more than a few minutes, passengers would get on in the front, while those getting off would move to the back door. The cost of driving anywhere on a specific bus was 1 Yuan (R1.20), commuters would either drop in a note or swipe their social security cards (it looks like a drivers license) which would show the remaining credits. When elderly passengers got on and swiped their cards it would show zero credit and a voice would say something, I can only assume the elderly travel for free. We drove through the whole city to get to our destination and I was intrigued by the modern developments and how well transportation functioned. Another interesting thing was that the motorbikes don't run on petrol like other Asian countries, rather they run on electricity. Earlier when buying our bus tickets,walking to the bathroom, we found about 6 motorbikes all plugged in and charging, you also hear the minimal amount of noise when they drive past you.

After 40 minutes we arrived at Grand View Park and disembarked, we paid the entrance fee and started exploring the huge park built around a colossal lake. The parks main exhibit is Grand View Tower, it had been built in 1690 during the Qing dynasty, destroyed in a war in 1840, rebuilt and once more destroyed in 1883 in a flood, before being rebuilt. The lake and towers were reserved for the Qing royalty, but the reason for it being so famous is due to a poet writing a poem in 180 Chinese characters about the lake, its beauty and how it had been involved in so much history which had passed but it still remained. Kumbler Kahn as well as many Dynasty leaders had crossed the lake in pursuit of extending and broadening their area of influence.

The lake is filled with waterlilies on one side, while the other is totally clear of vegetation and many small boats can be hired to go around on the lake. We walked around the park through a kids playground with bumper cars, target shooting games, even one where you sit on a canon shooting tennis balls at moving targets. We walked past but stopped at a 4D movie center, thinking they would be very advanced we gave it a shot watching a movie of Dinosaurs taking over. We were issued a pair of glasses and sat alone in the studio, that should have been the first sign. Next came the movie all Mandarin, that we should also have known, but at least you can follow the story line - its not too complicated. With all the special effects of the chairs dropping 10 cm at key time periods, water spraying in your face, wind blowing at your feet, it wasn't all that good and we would have rather saved the money for the snow world!

We walked on around the park past the expanse of the lake, which was truly huge, watching as men sitting on chairs reeled their Kites in or let them go with large wheels, some kites were barely visible in the distance. The next entertainment section was a theme park filled with roller coasters, ferris wheel and many other rides for children or the brave. There were also a variety of food stalls and as usual we had to give the weird a try. The one we chose, was prepared as follows, the man would put 2 spoonfuls of a type of white powder in a plastic container, then add hot water from a dragon headed urn, the mixture would quickly turned almost solid like jelly. He would then add different toppings of which we only knew sugar and nuts. The first couple of spoonfulls was nice and different but thereafter its just a monotonous taste so we left it. Leanne thought it was a type of gelatien.

We walked back making a stop at the potted garden, which contained various types of small plants, almost like bonsai trees. Our main aim for the day had been to take a boat from the park across to a village with different walking trails, unfortunately the ferry could not take us across. We stopped for an ice cream outside the park which we shared while waiting for the bus to arrive. We again hopped on bus 52 which took us back to our initial station.

From here it was a search for food, both of us were hungry after a day of walking through the park. We found a restaurant near our hotel where we pointed to a picture of noodles and something else, still don't know what it was. We had arrived to find a woman crying and a man taking her away. While waiting for the food, the child who had remained behind also started crying incessantly. Our food arrived and so did an elderly couple, the woman who was visibly distraught. We could only assume that someone in the family had died. The people in the kitchen had calmed down, so we ordered a meat dumpling, a very well known Chinese delicacy, before leaving.

We still had ample time on our hands and headed for the local market with souvenir stalls along a small road. We walked through amusing ourselves with all that was on offer. Along the way Leanne bought a watch set in brown wood, it only cost us R12, but my watch had broken and could no longer be adjusted. Hence every morning the alarm would go off at 07h30, the straps had also seen better days and in the end I broke them off leaving only a portable pocket watch an hour and fifteen minutes behind current time.

At the end of the market we found a food stall selling a type of pancake with egg and potato shavings cooked inside, we were still hungry so we gave it a try, turned out to be very nice. We had huge urges for fruit but they were almost 4 times the price it had been in Vietnam. We continued down the road towards our hotel, first stopping at a convenience store to purchase water, shampoo and oreo cookies. The cookies didn't last long on our uneventful afternoon :-) While we were relaxing on the chairs in the Foyer, a huge group of Chinese had arrived, what looked like 2 full sized bus loads. It had become to noisy and we still had much time to kill before the bus would depart.

We walked a little further down the road to an internet cafe, where everyone was either playing games while enjoying supper or watching movies, the screens were all 22 inch and larger LCD's! We checked our mails before heading out for supper ourselves, it turned out a little more difficult as few restaurant could describe the food or didn't have what we wanted. Our first attempt was less of a success, it was a fast food restaurant specializing in noodles or rice. We chose what looked like a great dish of noodles and chicken and it wasn't that cheap either. The dish arrived, noodles in oil with chicken pieces drifting around. The skin hadn't been removed and I couldn't even tell you to what part of the chicken it belonged. We ate some of it, although none of the chicken, the noodles were to oily for Leanne, in retrospect for me too. We walked around a little longer looking for a place where we could get what we had grown accustomed to, at last we found one where we could get a nice plate of rice and vegetables.

We walked back to the hotel and collected our bags and headed for the bus station. We arrived, put on our wire mesh and put our bags into the lower level storage. We were shown our seats, they weren't together, but the ticket collector soon moved us together on two upper births across each other. Below us were two Italians, one had been working in China for 4 years and spoke Mandarin fluently, her boyfriend had come to visit and they to were now touring through Yunnan province. We chatted to them a little before settling in, I don't know why we felt we needed to make contact with them, but there was a reason.

We had hardly settled in when a man came and walked up to me, informing me that he was the "boss/owner" of the bus and demanding to know how many kilograms our bags contained. We made up estimates of 13kg and 15kg, after which he demanded I pay him 60 Yuan as they were over the 10kg limit. We got into a small argument, after I told him that the ticket office told us no such thing and it was unreasonable to demand it from us now. His response was that he'll refund our tickets and we can get off the bus or he calls the police, knowing full well that few foreigners will want to miss their arranged transport and incur the costs of staying another night. This was when the Italian girl added her voice, they had a discussion for a few minutes where he at times almost shouted at her. In the end he came back and said we only needed to pay 30 Yuan, by this stage we all knew it was a scam and she said she wouldn't pay. He was very angry but a while later left the bus.

From here on there was continuous uncertainly as to our bags, we had stashed all our Dollars and newly drawn Yuan in our large bags now stowed under the bus. We were afraid that in his anger, he would remove our bags and we would arrive without them and R10 000, poorer. The second aspect keeping our imagination in full drive was that the bus just wouldn't leave, it was now 22h20 and we were supposed to leave at 21h20, The third was when the police arrived and parked in front of our bus. Luckily they left and 40 minutes later we pulled out of the bus station on our way to Dali City. The bus drive was uneventful, we tried to sleep, while driving towards our destination, stopping along the way between 12h00 and 01h00 for a toilet stop. The rest of the time I slept with my feet intertwined with my small backpack containing the laptop and camera's. In truth both of us slept okay, although I woke on various occasions, to check that the bag was still there - all this due to a book telling us off the notorious Kunming sleeper bus thieves!