Life in Cambodia

Does Yunnan Province have a soul?

We took a very long 9+ hour bus ride out of Luang Prabang heading up to the Chinese Border, though stopping over at Luang Nam Tha, just shy of the border to try and sneak in one last day of trekking or kayaking, but was spoiled by the rain (none of the guides would go out). The ride wasn't too bad, though it was long the bus was only half full, so everyone got to lounge around with plenty of space. The only thing of note is that at the place we stopped for lunch, I saw the largest rat I've ever seen. The store next to us had a big crate of them, for sale I guess, and from a distance, I thought they were puppies (I know, I know!). We were hoping to do some trekking or kayaking or something in town, but it rained all day and we had to be happy with walking around town or looking at the China guidebook, plotting for the coming weeks. Eventually, we managed to get on a bus out of town and thus began the story for the next three days...bus bus and more bus. Without going into too much detail, we were basically on the bus for three days, and the long winding roads meant it was taking 10 hours to cover 300 miles or so. Needless to say it was not fine. Though, on one day we did manage to snag a sleeper bus and thus passed a 1o hour day in the comfort of tiny little 2ft by 5ft beds. Most everything was uneventful except for the fact that Maggie almost got turned away at the Chinese border, though managed to sweet talk her way in. A little batting of the eyelashes even works on Chinese border guards! During our time on the sleeper bus it rained and despite our stuff being in the cargo hold, it all got soaked. And not just a little wet, soaked, and everything in it. To top off the wet bag upon arrival in Kunming, we exited the train with the equivalent of 75 cents in Chinese yuan, but $300 USD (though no banks were open to exchange it) and all of the ATMs were rejecting our cards. We went store to store begging someone to change the money, but no one would touch our Yankee Dollars with a stick, they even seemed a bit scared when I started waving it around. We were hoping to immediately get some yuan and catch another bus to Dali (our first real destination) but with the cash flow problem we had to stay over in Kunming for a night (at oddly enough the same little hotel I stayed at 3 years ago). After a bit (and a different part of town), for whatever reason the ATMs started working and we were on our way to Dali the next day. Allow me to switch gears here, since we are back on internet after a few days. We passed through Dali and are currently in Lijiang, both towns that I visited way back when in 2003. They were remotely cool back then, little old cities, preserved to keep the traditional architecture of the minority tribes (Bai & Naxi, respectively). Now, I would recommend to anyone not to come here if you want to see anything remotely traditional or authentic. Dali had one or two streets that were touristy, but if you really tried, you could wander off the path and really get a sense of the old city. McLijiang (old town) however is like a Disneyland theme park - Epcot Yunnan Province or something and after 30 minutes here, Maggie and I are already plotting our escape. I feel like a chump, because I picked these places and can only take heart from the fact we can rent bikes and head out of town, and that within days we will be hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge, away from all the crowds. The little windy streets would be wonderful to wander through, but everything has been converted into a shop or restaurant, and I mean literally everything. There is no getting away from it, no escaping it, nor the hordes of tourists. 99% of the tourists here are Chinese and I guess driving the Disneyification of this place (and Dali on a lesser scale); its a shame to see, especially because it seems really fake and contrived but most of the people here seem to be happy with that, so ok. We've seen multiple groups being lead around by folks dressed up in "traditional" Bai or Naxi outfits and lead around the city with a bright orange flag. There is a time and place for Disney World, I went and had a good time there, but it is a shame when Disney is passed off as the real thing.

Maggie here, I will say though that Dali was a nice little place--the two tourist-y streets were that, but had some cool little shops and good little dumpling places that were excellent (we ate about 20 for the equivalent of .90cents!) and other local restaurants, markets and shops. We did a great hike into the mountains around Dali a few days ago and took a ski lift up one side, hiked and saw some lovely waterfalls and covered about 12km, then took a breath-taking gondola ride back down (from much higher up and covered more of the mountain across). Matt and I spit up yesterday in Dali, me for biking and he crept around taking pictures. I covered a good 20km and visited a bunch of small villages just off the main road that weren't listed on the maps or in the guide book. I couldn't communicate at all with the folks I came across but had some sweet interactions with old ladies and the kids got a good laugh at the crazy white lady riding around their town on a bike. I happened upon a Bai funeral ceremony and stood a distance away, just to understand first what was going on and then continued on my way (many people were clad in all white with white head scarves/covers, carrying colorful paper banners/kites of many levels high on wooden sticks, walking the body to the mountain to bury). I also encountered an old man playing a traditional guitar/banjo and chatted with kids while buying some candy (their favorite or maybe only English words were 'Hello!' and 'I love you!'). We were both pretty exhausted last night from our day and finished off the afternoon with a stroll into town and visited a tea shop. The tea shop visit proved to be a lesson for both of us--a very chatty and eclectic woman who owned the place set us up with a rightful tea-tasting experience. It was a PuEr (region of Yunnan Province) tea shop so only carried this kind of tea (which we were told is highly sought after in other provinces and into Tibet). Some fast facts for you (from our tea connoisseur):
-Fermented tea is smoother and better to drink after 3-4 years; it is also good for the stomach and to drink in the winter
-Non-fermented tea is better after 8years; green non-fermented is good for the day and summer...
-A tea tree is sweeter the older and bigger it is (some we saw in her pictures were 400 years old!)
-PuEr tea is all black tea
anyway, we enjoyed talking with her and her friends over SEVERAL cups of tea (both fermented and non) and was a fantastic end of our stay in Dali. What was even better was that she just sort of had friends stopping by and they all sat down with us for tea and chatting and never did she make any suggestion or push us to buy, or for that matter pay for all of our tasting...she even shared some special green tea given to her by a friend, which was packed tightly around a rose bud; it was beautiful once it opened into a clear, small teapot of hot water. As our friendly tea drinking brought us into the early evening, we really wanted to buy a little from our friend and so chose some fermented and non to take us through our journey and said good-bye.

We headed to a Uygher (pronounced We-ger) restaurant that Matt spotted the day before (Uyghers are Muslim ethnic minority in China, and live in the farthest western province, which will be our last province to visit in China before crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan). We headed down a short alley where we were hit by the wonderful smell of roasting goat meat, chicken and beef kebabs and fresh bread. We ordered a specialty Matt knew of called 'lagman' which were thick egg (?) noodles covered in a stew of goat, chillies, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and other spices. Amazing and hearty. We of course also took some goat kebabs and a large round of doughy homemade bread. We weren't left wanting! We got some tips on places to visit while in the west from the chef. A local beer to finish off the night and we were lazily walking back to our guest house and pretty much just fell into sleep.

Matt has filled you in on our latest stop, so I'll leave it at that, but we can't wait to get into the mountains in the next few days to trek around some more. We'll add pictures over the next few days.

posted by Life in Cambodia @ 8:48 AM