Kunming

Aside from some gut pains, the ride up to Kunming was nice. China has some incredible infrastructure. A gorgeous, four-line highway with guardrails blasted across the mountains, over bridges and through tunnels all the way to Kunming. I love the feeling of making good time. The whole trip took about ten hours, passing a 'stone forest' before pulling into Kunming's Eastern Bus Terminal.

Once I got off, I was was hit with that old familiar problem. Where am I, where am I going and how do I get there? Again, the Lonely Planet would've come in handy. It took a while, but I managed to find a bus that took me close to the city center. As soon as I could, I hopped on a computer and loaded up my Lonely Planet PDFs that I had miraculously thrown on a thumb drive just before the trip started. Unfortunately I couldn't print anything off, but I did get my bearings slightly.

I walked into a place called Camille's only to discover that since being added to LP, the room rates had skyrocketed. No thanks. Guess I had to sniff out a place on my own. Bad news was, I was in the financial district of the city. Skyscrapers, fancy restaurants and, of course, fancy hotels. My prospects looked grim.

I was tired and hungry so I stopped off in this Western restaurant to eat and maybe ask a few locals for advice. Two Aussies were seated beside me having a one-sided conversation, so I asked them. One guy (the chatty one) sprung into action and pulled out his phone. He was a big, red-faced, Sports Illustrated-ish looking guy, about early 30s, and his zeal was a bit worrisome. I had mentioned that I wanted something cheap, so I figured that he would take that into consideration. After some brash, forceful talking, he said a room was reserved for me at a nearby four-star hotel for $20, a $10 discount. That is a great deal, but $20 a night is still a lot more than I'm used to spending. He kept driving home how great a deal it was and how he'd gone out of his way to get it for me, so I kind of got bullied into saying 'yes'. At that point however, I didn't care and just figured I'd find a really cheap place for the next night. But duder wasn't finished.

He seemed keen on walking me there directly and rushed out the door. I hadn't even paid my bill yet. In the minute he was gone, the other Australian whispered "Please, get him the hell away from me". The guy was a sociopath. He returned flustered. "What the hell man? Last time I do you a favor." I told him I wasn't ready to go yet. "If you don't want the room, then I just wasted my time with you. I got you a $10 discount, you could at least give me some respect." I had been giving him nothing but respect. Other patrons in the restaurant sat and watched this psychopath, in awe of his apparent imbalance. I paid my bill, thanked the dude for the 30th time, and took off.

It was frightening how the situation seemed to escalate from nothing and how disturbed the guy seemed to be. I was glad to be rid of him. I actually ended up going to the hotel too. I had no choice. Sure enough, when I arrived, I discovered that a reservation had been made for me. At least that loon made good on his promise.

The room, of course, was a palace compared to the places I'd been staying in. Lots of posh embellishments that seemed so utterly unnecessary. Glass bowl sink, Amazon shower head, hair dryer. I sighed and turned on the World Cup. I realized that I had a fair bit of laundry to do so I called up room service (first time having room service this whole trip by the way). A lady came to the door and presented me with a laundry menu. A dollar fr a T-shirt, two for pants, etc. Holy crap. I had my whole wardrobe to wash and I could not justify spending that kind of money. Another hard sigh. I sent the room service lady off.

So, at about 9:30 at night, I bundled all of my dirty clothes into a bag and set off to find SOMEWHERE to get them done. I had heard about a place called "Hump", not sure how, but I nonetheless set out in the general direction of where it was supposed to be.

On my way there, it started to rain. I must have looked like the saddest thing ever; walking in the rain, holding a garbage bag filled with clothes. Some ladies working at a restaurant took pity on me and let me hang out inside until it cleared up. Eventually I found the place. It was exactly what I was looking for. Cheap beds, laundry, Internet. They were perplexed as to why I was bringing in laundry when I didn't have a room, so I booked one for the following night.

On my way back, I passed the crazy jackass who got me the room. "Did you find the place?" he asked. "Yes" I replied without breaking my stride. North Korea had just started playing Brazil when I got to sleep.

Next morning I woke up and peaced the pricey place out. The walk to Hump wasn't as bad, since I was less 3 kilos of laundry. Hump itself was great. Got a bed, locked my stuff up and ate breakfast. My laundry was finished too, so finally, for the first time since Ha Long Bay, I had both a full set of clothes and a comfortable place to lay my head.

I did a lot that day. It was a perfect day to get a lot done really. Kunming lies at an elevation of around 2000 meters above sea level, so the climate was absolutely beautiful. 23 degrees, partly cloudy, no humidity, and the sky was the shade of blue that you rarely get to see down at sea level. I finally found a place that would print off PDFs, then assembled my own Lonely Planet in a newly-purchased notebook. Saw two huge pagodas. A lively, flower-adorned square sat just outside of the guesthouse, and, beyond that, a bustling promenade and shopping district. The city was buzzing like you'd expect for a place with a population of 5 million people. Saw a bird market with all kinds of caged creatures. A mosque. Stopped in an arcade to play some old 32-bit shoot 'em ups. It seemed like the day would never end. Eventually, however, the sun went down.

After dinner, I set out to try and find some entertainment and came across a roller-disco. I was completely alone, and it was totally one of those situations where it would have been AMAZING to strap on some skates with a buddy, but no matter, I still went inside. After all, I can't predict when I'll run into another roller-disco again. For $2, a got a pair of skates and set out around the track.

Red and blue lights flashed and Chinese pop music blared from the sound system. Hot shots with Manga hair and all but two buttons undone on their shirts hot-dogged for the ladies, occasionally crashing into the more conservative skaters. Girls in miniskirts cracked the whip. I had never roller skated in my life, so I busted out the old hockey skills and before long, I was able to Steve Yzerman my way around the stampede. No one was wearing helmets of course, and there were some pretty crazy collisions. No lost teeth thankfully. Some young dude was absolutely stunned that a foreigner was there and kept saying "hello!" to me in that "I know an English word!" way. After an hour, I was hot-dogging pretty good, and I didn't fall once, so I decided to quit while I was ahead. I arrived back in Hump drenched in sweat.

Much later in the evening, I met a guy named Patrick from Ireland and his girlfriend Jessica from Hong Kong. They told me the Yuanyang rice terraces were not worth the effort, which put my mind at ease. Later we were joined by a girl from San Francisco. She was cute, but my god, she had no clue about anything. She thought that Ireland was part of the UK, then thought that Canadians could travel, work and live in the UK and Australia without passports. Patrick and I took mild pleasure in correcting her and watching her face twist in confusion. Everyone went to bed soon after.

Next morning I packed up. My next destination was Dali. I had maybe a fleeting interest, but I strategically planned on meeting my buddy Sanjay in Lijiang on the 20th, which meant I had two days to kill. Maybe Dali would be fun, who knows. Before leaving, I grabbed a bunch of flyers for guesthouses in places I intended to visit. With these and my makeshift Lonely Planet, I was back on track. Caught a local bus to the station and rolled out in a timely manner. Kunming was excellent. Great weather, great guesthouse, great food, roller disco and arcades... China had redeemed itself.

West Pagoda, taken from the East Pagoda.

Statues in public places.

The busy financial district provides most of the skyline just a few kilometers east.

A busy crosswalk leads to the central promenade just outside my door.

Some pretty flowers. Finally, a metropolis that isn't a big, stinky city.

Domino Roller Disco. This was a one-second exposure, so it looks empty, but really, everyone is zipping by at high speed!

The view from the Hump balcony.

Lao Cai / Hekou, into China

This was a particularly bad leg. Full of calamities, some of which I was able to predict, while others flew out of nowhere to bite me in the ass and send my stress levels through the roof. Sort of like a microcosm of the whole trip really. Except minus all of the awesome stuff.

I boarded an overnight bus. Everyone else on board was headed for Sapa, the well-touristed northern destination in Vietnam. I would get off before then at the ratty border town of Lao Cai and cross into China by foot. From that point on, the well-oiled tourism machine of Southeast Asia would end and I'd have to fend for myself in the English vacuum of China. It was a sleeper, the bobsled type, and wasn't terribly comfortable. Before getting on, a Vietnamese employee of a guesthouse was caught red-handed with a girl's stolen ipod and a bit of commotion was kicked up. not sure how it was resolved, but, being a recent victim of theft myself, part of me hoped that they nailed the bastard to the cross.

I had to sleep next to a father and his very young daughter who were sharing a seat. Kind of annoying because that was four extra appendages I had to worry about drifting over into my seat during the night. And they did drift. Every once and a while, a little hand would plunk over onto me which I had to gently remove so as to not wake up the sleeping child and incur the wrath of her father. I didn't sleep much the whole trip, so when we rolled into Lao Cai at 5am and I was ejected from the bus, I was tired and cranky.

It was pouring and the town was barren. I threw on my rain jacket and tried to find some food and a dry place to wait until the border opened up at 8. I found a place that sold pho, but for some reason, the lady couldn't understand that I wanted pho. Like, this actually happened a lot. I'd go to a restaurant that would have no menu and nothing but assorted ingredients on display. I knew that there was know way to communicate what I wanted, and no way for them to communicate what they can make, so I would just ask for anything. "All OK". I didn't care what they made, as long as it was edible. Sounds simple, but they usually got this impression that I had this complicated order I was trying to convey and ask me a million questions, all of which I, of course, couldn't understand. What usually resulted was a plate of random ingredients thrown together without any kind of sauce or seasoning whatsoever; something no one in their right mind would order. That's what happened there that morning, as I got just noodles, chicken and water instead of pho. Terrible.

While eating, someone from this group of drunken old screwups at the next table would occasionally wander over and ask me something in Vietnamese and have the whole table laughing. All I could do was shrug and conceal my rage. Got the hell out of that place fast.

It was 6:30. UGH. Stores began opening their shutters and I found and Internet cafe to thankfully occupy me until 8. Caught a motorbike taxi to the border and was greeted by an army of touts that gunned specifically for me. They wanted to exchange my Vietnamese dong into Chinese yuan. Of course, it was all a scam, and they would have ended up taking 50% with the rates they were quoting me. When I realized this, I became incredibly abrupt and curt with them. They kept spewing crap, saying things like there were no places to exchange money across the border and that there were no ATMs. BS of course. And what really bothered me was how the border guards would just allow these freelance jackasses to run around checkpoints harassing tourists. It didn't stop until I crossed the bridge over to the Chinese side, into the town of Hekou, where a whole other pile of problems was waiting for me.

The guards were friendly, which was refreshing after being treated like a whoopee cushion for the last four hours. However, when I went through customs, they confiscated my newly-purchased Lonely Planet China because it failed to recognize Taiwan as a part of China (which it isn't by the way). Like, is the country run by a bitter, resentful child? Is this petty shit worth inconveniencing, nay, crippling, my ability to navigate the country? This was the straw that broke the camel's back, as I soon realized that no one in China spoke anything resembling English, and there was nary a Roman character to be found anywhere. I was utterly marooned. "Bus station", "hotel", even "toilet". No one could understand what I was asking and they were all TERRIBLE at both charades AND Pictionary.

I wandered the streets with my heavy, heavy backpack in the hot, humid weather in my damp, filthy clothes for over an hour trying to find a place to stay. And the town was a backwater hellhole. Fat, brown-toothed men walked down the road in their underwear gawking at me with hollow expressions. Everyone seemed to be screaming at each other. Phlegm was being churned up and spat on the floor in every direction I looked. The surrounding buildings were all dull concrete and rusty shutters. Not a modicum of tact or decorum to be found ANYWHERE.

I found an English sign saying "HOTEL", and it was the fancy kind, with a staffed reception area, elevators and clocks lining the wall displaying the time in New York, London, etc... Out of my budget, but I was desperate. $50 a night. Euagh! In my dying breath, I asked if they knew of a cheaper place, and surprisingly, I was led to an inconspicuous building a few doors down. It was a guesthouse for $4 a night. Finish line.

The owner laid about in his underwear and it took a shockingly long time to convey to him that I was coming to his guesthouse because I wanted a room. Finally I got one with a bathroom and a TV. Perks, but after a day like this, perks were like a maraschino cherry on a cow turd.

The water shut off halfway through my shower, so I had to bust open a bottle of water to rinse the shampoo off of my head. After that, I thought good and hard about what I wanted to do next. Lonely Planet recommended the Yuanyan rice terraces, but without the aforementioned Lonely Planet, getting to, and navigating, the area would have been a lot more problematic. That, and I wanted to get out of rural China as quickly as possible. So I eventually decided that my next stop would be Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province and about ten hours away. You couldn't have dragged me on another bus at that time, so I fell asleep and hoped that I wouldn't wake up for another 16 hours.

I woke up at 7pm. UGH. What the hell am I going to do? I got up and set out to find food before everything closed. The place I found had no menu and a pile of ingredients on display. UGH. Thankfully, I was able to point to a delicious looking meal being shared by some people and say "That". And it was delicious. Chinese cuisine is a little more familiar than the other cuisines of Southeast Asia, and the meal was just what I needed.

I wandered around town to find the same depressing sights I had passed during the day. Night time had not altered Hekou's character in the least. Back to the guesthouse I suppose. Let's see if the TV works. It did, just barely, and I was able to get the World Cup, which was good enough for me. So I watched that, and didn't sleep a wink, until early the next morning when the bus station opened.

Thankfully, the ticket lady understood her own language when I walked up and said "Kunming". I had about 2 hours to kill, and that's about how long it took to track down which bus I would be riding on and where the bathroom was.

Oh yes, the bathrooms. Not only was the bathroom filthy as can be, but there were absolutely no enclosures whatsoever. Everything went into a trough, and I mean EVERYTHING. And did I mention there were no enclosures? Several men were giving demonstrations and I almost considered dousing my eyes with bleach after catching a glimpse. It reminded me of the barn at my grandparents' farm. Funny thing was, I had to pay almost a dollar to use it, making it the most expensive bathroom I'd used, as well as the most disgusting; two distinctions that are very unlikely to coincide. Bravo China.

Soon it was time to go and I could not have been more thrilled to leave. Not a very good way to start a new country. China needed to step it up big time in the next few days.

The dull central boulevard of Hekou, early morning in the rain.

This was the sky the entire time. Not pictured: incredible mugginess.

The tallest building in town. It actually looked like no one had been working on it for months.

I at one point tried this door thinking there was a toilet behind it. Silly me! The whole town's a toilet!

This sign probably says "Hekou: Be sad with us, forever".

Hanoi, part 2

I saw the remains of a traffic accident on the highway back to Hanoi. Given the sheer volume and intensity of the traffic, it was only a matter of time before I came across one. This one was exceptionally bad and involved a car and a motorcycle. The police and the ambulance had yet to arrive. You could feel a hush come across the mini bus as we passed by. I may have seen two dead bodies.

Back in Hanoi, I said goodbye to the girls and made my way back to the old hotel to see if my attic room was available again. It was, and my Chinese visa had arrived as well. I ogled it like it was a merit badge. Awarded for excellence in the field of tolerating bureaucracy. I lugged my bag up the four flights of stairs and settled again. Didn't feel like leaving on any walks that night.

But unfortunately, I had to. I had forgotten my Jeju Island souvenir towel on Cat Ba, so I needed to buy a new one. Just after sunset, I came across a huge, sprawling market that had not been there before. It was a Saturday, so it was most likely a weekend deal. People walked elbow to elbow past the many makeshift shops that had sprung up. Everything was, for the most part, clothes, but I did find a place that sold towels. I picked a slightly torn one because I knew I could haggle it down to pennies. Soon after, it started to rain.

Vendors scrambled about setting up tarps and makeshift shelters. They had no idea what they were in for. I bolted back to the guesthouse just as things started to get really crazy. I was perhaps the fiercest rainstorm I had witnessed on the trip, if not, my whole life. Being on the top floor meant I could hear the rain pounding the roof; sounding almost like intense TV static. Very very loud. Outside I saw rain flying in all directions. Past 50 meters I saw nothing. Outside of my room, the doors leading to the balcony had been blown open and the floor was flooded. The shelf with the clean bedsheets was soaked as was some poor bastard's laundry that had been hung out to dry. The doors kept slamming against the wall, so I rushed over and closed them. The clasp wouldn't hold under the intense wind, so I used a chair to brace them in place. Chaos.

The next morning brought clear, sunny weather, so I woke up early and headed over to Ho Chi Minh's tomb. This was my last chance after two failed attempts after all. I arrived to find a terrifyingly long line. Long, but it was moving. It took a while to even find the end. Guards scrambled about trying to curb the rampant line-cutting. People were swelling forward constantly. Hands rested themselves on the small of my back, urging me onwards. I didn't see the point in this mob panic. It's not like we weren't going to get in.

The line was long, yes, but thanks to the ephemeral nature of the attraction, it moved very fast and before long, I was inside the mausoleum. Cameras were confiscated of course. A few steps further and I saw the man whose face was so ubiquitous throughout all of Vietnam. He didn't look real, but the degree to which the guards protected the body, suggested that he was. Four were standing motionless around the glass while a handful of others kept the crowd moving. Before long, I was spat out the other end.

Having some time to kill, I went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Expecting the usual pablum, I was surprised to see some pretty bizarre physical interpretations of the man's life. A cave shaped like the inside of Ho Chi Minh's head? Yes. Strewn weaponry forming a ring around a cabin? Yes. Huge sculptures of fruit? Not sure what that has to do with anything, but yes.

I was about done with Hanoi then. Saw the body, time to leave. I didn't think it would take two blog entries, but I had my visa and it was time to go. I booked an overnight bus to the border town of Lao Cai and whiddled away the remaining time to departure on the net. I found the cheapest, quietest, coolest and most well-equipped Internet cafe tucked away from the stinky street. Awesome. Thanks Hanoi. You tried my patience at times, but I will never forget your je ne sais quoi.

Train passing through the city. I think there was a guard rail, but I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't.

Here's a small taste of the congested streets of the Old Quarter taken from the back of a (slow moving) motorbike.