Enter the Yunnan

Sa Pa was a much needed break, but by Thursday we were ready to move on. Admittedly, both of us were anxious about crossing over to China. Our guide book and several people we've talked to along the way have implied that we should expect little more than a sea of concrete buildings, overbearing gray clouds or smog, and rude people with offensive hygiene habits who were unwilling to communicate. Within the first day after crossing the border, however, all of those warnings were proved dead wrong. The China that we have seen, albeit we've only been here for a few days, is an incredibly beautiful country and wonderful people! Perhaps best of all, we have yet to find food we didn't like - delicious and inexpensive(we were somehow able to order a good bowl of spicy noodles for less than a dollar from the street stall shown above)! I am completely enamoured with the country and feel (and I think Nicole, too) totally recharged to travel.

We crossed from Lao Cai to Hekou early Thursday morning - working our way through the first of many encounters with excessive paperwork. It was the first time that I can think of that we didn't see any other obvious foreigners. Being the only Caucasians walking around with backpacks was both unsettling and fun. The Vietnamese border guard spent a good ten minutes looking at our passports and even used an ultraviolet light to inspect our China visa. Not sure why, but border guards (at every country I've been, including the US) always make me feel like I'm smuggling something. On the other side of the bridge, the Chinese border guard had me seriously doubting that we would make it through. He spent five minutes on my passport and an additional fifteen minutes looking at Nicole's. Although I look nothing like my passport picture, it was Nicole that he gave a hard time - even turned to the only female guard present to confirm (I can only imagine because women can recognize another better than men??) that it was actually Nicole. He then had Nicole sign a blank customs form to match against her passport. Eventually, against his better judgement I'm sure, he let us through. And, in all fairness, the other guards in the station were very helpful in directing us.

The bus station was only a few meters away and we easily found our seats with time to spare. We still hadn't seen any other backpackers and were fairly certain, especially after we had our picture taken, that we were going to be the center of attention for the next twelve hours. Enter Korean-American Presbyterian missionaries. The same guy who took our picture turned out to be part of a father-son team from Philadelphia travelling through Southern China to visit Christian churches and they just so happened to be sitting behind us. Neither of them spoke Mandarin and so travelled with a guide who came in really handy when the bus almost left Nicole at a bathroom stop. I think I would have been able to get my point across, but I was still glad that he could yell along with me in a language the driver understood.

Initially hesitant about taking a day bus, the passing scenery was more than enough reward and the time easily passed. After a couple of hours undistinguished from what we had seen in Northern Vietnam some subtle difference began to creep into the landscape. Most noticeably, the same baskets we've seen strapped to motorbikes for the last three months were saddled on donkeys. The roads were lined with trucks being loaded with goods carried by the pack animals. Farmers could be seen leading a train of donkeys in the distant hills and the valley floor below. I initially thought that it was a issue of money, but, and I'm only speculating, it seems that using donkeys is the best way to get around. The terrain in Southern Yunnan is so much steeper and less paved than anything we've seen so far that a donkey could traverse from the mountainside farm to the sole paved road much faster(if at all) than a motorbike.We stopped for dinner at about 8:30PM at a buffet style cafeteria and we made our first venture into Yunnan's food. Language barrier was a none issue; a simple point and nod was all it took to build a plate of four different entrees and a bowl of rice. Delicious - even the vegetables were nicely flavored with a gentle spice. Nicole, a bit skeptical, let me dig into the first few bites, but was soon enjoying it as much as I. To go with the food, an awesome Kung Fu movie starring Chow Yun-Fat was playing on a small television in the corner. It was a much needed break before contiuning on. We finally made it to Kunming a little after midnight. As usual we were "helped" in our search for a bank and the hostel - long story, but it took an hour and a half for us to go three kilometers.Kunming is probably the most pleasant big city I've ever been. I'm not joking. Maybe it's because we've been hanging out in some of the biggest cities in Asia, but simply walking streets was interesting and entertainment enough. No tuk-tuks, a fraction of the motorbikes we're accustomed (almost all of which were electric powered), and a sparing use of horns made for the quietest city we've been in months! The heaviest traffic was in the bike lines - wide enough on both side of the three for five or six bikers abreast. The sidewalks were wide and not once were we harassed by street vendors, prostitutes, or drug dealers. Truly, a shocking experience for us South East Asian vets.Clear blue skies, a gentle breeze, and lively pedestrians inspired us to ditch our initial plan to visit the Kunming Museum and spend the day walking the streets. Cuihu Park was our favorite stop and most of the pictures on the blog were taken there. The three men with giant reels controlling kites almost too far away to be seen were a common site. And yes, that is a young girl inside a plastic bubble floating in a lake. I don't know how much fun she was having flopping around in the bubble, but the parents on shore who kept kicking her out into the lake were having a blast. Music was everywhere - mostly Chinese Opera style singing and instrumentals. Boing! So much fun to walk through the park. I could probably write about a million little experience throughout the day, but it would take too long. Odd because we haven't really done anything besides ride a bus and walk through the city and yet I feel like I have more to describe than I have in weeks.Today we took a train (hard seat train for $5/ticket...sweet) from Kunming to Dali. We were expecting, again thanks to our guide book, a rough ride. And, again, it was exactly the opposite. We had plenty of room and hot water to enjoy our giant cup of noodles(about three times as big as the standard cup 'o noodles from back home). I must be a scary looking dude because nobody said a word to us until the moment I left to go to the bathroom. By the time I got back to our seats Nicole was swarmed by five women teaching her Mandarin and practising their English. Apparently strong in numbers, they didn't stop when I came back and, instead, told me to take a different seat so they could sit next to Nicole! We spent three hours talking to the ladies in the picture and ended up exchanging email addresses. Ping Wang (the younger girl on the right) gave her bracelet to Nicole who, in return, gave Ping her necklace. The Chinese people sitting nearby looked on with knowing smiles like parents watching their children getting along with playmates. Needless to say, we were really glad we took the train.(By the way, Chellis, having pictures of us with you and your family and the little red packet your grandmother gave us have worked wonders for breaking the ice!)

The one frustration I've had so far has been Internet censorship. Last night, as Chellis mentioned in the comments, I was unable to access the blog (In addition to blospot, we are unable to view Google News or Wikipedia). According to articles I've read online the Chinese government has, without any given reason, universally blocked access to any www.blogspot/... address. Unofficially, the site has been blocked because Chinese citizens were using blogspot as a portal to access websites blocked by the Chinese firewall (called The Great Wall). Fortunately, I think we will be able to update and add posts, but we won't be able add comments or see the blog as you do(although there are ways that I have found to get around that ;). Your comments are automatically forwarded to our email address, so please continue to respond - we really do read an enjoy them all even if we don't always respond. In case there are any further interruptions, we'll email our posts to Chellis and she has, graciously, agreed to post them for us(thank you, again, Chellis!).