Chinas like a friend you haven't seen in awhile...
Trip Start
Dec 20, 2010
1
65
83
Trip End
Jul 07, 2011
Where I stayed
Kunming, Yunnan, China
Saturday, May 21, 2011
We left Lhasa on a train to Chengdu that took 48 hours. There was beautiful scenery and enjoyed the constant supply of oxygen. When we arrived in Chengdu we had 2 options; stay the night or get the next train to Kunming. As we had already been to Chengdu we decided to try and get the next train. We got it. It left at 3pm and it was only 9am. We put our stuff in left luggage and walked into town, getting a little lost on the way. We couldn't believe the temperature difference it was hot and humid! We will have it worse than that for 6 weeks, Arrghhh! We couldn't believe how much Chengdu had changed in 5 years. It was a completely different city with it's soul taken out and replaced by shops, shops and more shops. So we indulged in a little shopping, why not there was nothing else.
We jumped on the train and realised our beds were the top ones in hard sleeper (3 beds high). I was pleased my arm was feeling better. For the 24 hours to Kunming we laid up the top (not enough room to sit), reading and listening to music. I finished a whole book on that trip.
We arrived in Kunming and found it to be a lot cooler. We found our hostel and went out exploring the city. It was the same as Chengdu, lots of shops! Oh well, Fraser needed new clothes so we went shopping.
The next day we did a little sight seeing and saw a couple of old pagodas and went for a walk around Green Lake park. If you wanted a nice relaxing walk it was out of the question. There was so many people singing, playing instruments, dancing and of course arcade games.
We wanted to make our bags extra light so we sent all our warm stuff home. 17kgs later and a big and small box, we will hopefully see that in August.
The next day we had to get up early to give Mr Chen our passports so he could get us a Vietnam visa. We got the 1 day service and picked it up at 5:00pm. We then caught a sleeper bus to the border of Vietnam, Hekou. This was our first sleeper bus ever and were a little apprehensive, especially after what we read.
There was something that really shocked us about chinese people is in the last 5 years they have got bigger. Chinas like a friend you haven't seen in awhile and in that time they got fat. They no longer ride bicycles but drive electric motorbikes/scooters everywhere, even on the pavement. I wasn't the biggest person there. There were people taller than me and heaps bigger than me. I even found clothes that fit! No one asked for my picture either. Yah I'm pleased about that.
Comments
How's it going with the Kindle? What ya been reading?
I've been reading crap romantic books, nothing interesting. Kindle is going great.