Hello friends and family!!
Jintian 7 yue 3 hao. We are now in Kunming train station. This is our second trip out of three to Kunming. And we will be in America ten days from now. Not entirely certain when we'll be back in Raleigh but I am missing you all for sure and cant wait to share our stories when we return. Let's see...last I wrote we landed in WuYishan. We both really liked it there. The train ride was exhausting enough to need some time to recover so we spent most of the day sleeping and getting acquainted with the town. It had been very hot with no sign of rain until we left.
1. WuYishan at night- In the morning and in the evening some streets hold the market where people sell fruit, hot food, jewelry, and clothes. It feels kind of like the fair minus the rides. You can get food between 1 and 10 kuai (10 is about $1.60 dollars!). It makes me miss the evening market in Nanjing. We got a watermelon when one of the ladies wanted a picture of her daughter with me. I happily oblidged to pose with her. People are really nice here. And we found jiaozi (dumplings) and boazi (stuffed meat or bean or vegetable bun)! We love jiaozi and boazi but we saved getting bean boazi for breakfast so we told the shop owner that we'd come back next day. Riley and I drew a crowd of curious people when we played Bananagrams. Once we were done we invited people to play some cards with us--ERS. A young girl, an older lady, and an older man joined us. Riley was good at explaining the game that everyone caught on quickly and the older lady had her game on. She was really good and so enthusiastic that we had lots of laughs. She ended up winning, too. An hour or two later they had to leave but we caught the eye of a group of chinese guys and gals (about our age) who invited Riley and I to their table for food and drinks. They offered us beer, chicken feet, and cigarettes although we decline the later. We've never had chicken feet before so it was funny cause we couldn't figure out how to eat it. Anyways, it was an experience. Occassionally a person would take a picture with us.
2. Bamboo rafting- our third day there we finally went rafting on the Jiu Qu Xi (Nine Bend Creek). It is the popular attraction of this town. I miss swimming. The water was sooo nice and cold. Because the creek is shallow the drivers use these long bamboos with sharp metal on the end to push against the rocks. The story of the large rock cliffs is that they used to hold bodies in them. The cliffs have many holes into the surface and that's where once bodies wrapped in silk. How they got there? who knows. Our steering driver was funny because sometimes he would turn around & he wouldn't pay attention that our raft was floating towards a sandy shore, a large rock, and even another boat. Then he would push his way away.
3. To Kunming, we have to take a train first to Yingtan (I'll declare it the dirtiest train station now that I can say I've seen many). Yingtan train to Kunming. We weren't able to get any sleeper tickets and the train is supposed to be 3 day trip from Yingtan to Kunming. Riley and I prepared ourselves with enough meals, drinks, and books to entertain us. My estimation of the amount of people going to Kunming on our train was extremely off. There were more people than there were seats!! Riley and I couldn't, at first, figure out how this was possible. The trip was interesting to say the least---hardcore. After the first day and hardly anyone got off it was safe to assume that a lot of the people were going to Kunming. Once again, Riley and I didn't get a seat together but sometimes he was able to switch with someone to sit next to me. Half of the time, I sat next to the sleepiest guy on the train. I even envied a little how he was able to sleep thru almost everything. It became funny how he slowly would fall then I would push him back up but he would fall again. Everyone else laughed too but he drooled a little on me and he had to go. A father and the cutiest little girl were in the booth across from us. She smiled at me a lot when I waved.
I kept looking at the map everytime the train passed a stop. It's hard being on a train for 36 hours! I was ready to get there. When I just started getting used to wasting away (jk) I saw a sign from the next train station---Kunming!! I was in disbelief but didn't care. I was so ecstatic that I told Riley. We got off with much relief.
3. Kunming: Is a lot like Nanjing, a large city.We didn't really see any sights here but we did find a dvd store and bought many dvds for unbelievable cheap that they're probably ripped. We stayed for a day and night then got our tickets for Shanghai and ShiLing.
4. Stone Forest in ShiLin: Is a two hour train ride away from Kunming. The train is also over-crowded. With one look at the map we can tell a lot of the people must be going to Fuzhou, another big city. ShiLing is a small tourist city famous for it's Stone Forest (ShiLin). We immediately went to the first one--Naigu Stone Forest--once we got off the train. It is quite amazing. The wear on these rocks "karst' makes fantastic formations of stone. Some hang above our heads, some make caves, and their grip makes them easy to climb or sit in. The second day we explored the more popular Stone Forest. It was not secluded like Naigu but it also wasn't exactly like Naigu in style either. The Naigu (or black) is like it sounds a black stone forest. ShiLin however is all gray and it feels like the lair of a James Bond villan. It reminds me of one of my dreams.
5. The Sani: I had to look this up from my China book: Shi Lin is home to the Sani, one of the many subgroups of the Yi minority. They are known for their embroidery, widely available at Shi Lin. There are very beautiful and intricate. Some of the Sani work as tour guides and dancers.
Our next stop is Lijiang. Home of the Naxi minority (Naxi prounounced like Na-shee), and labyrinth of cobbled alleys, wooden houses, cafés and whatever we'll see. If this computer cooperates with me pictures will be up. :) This will help you see what we are talking about. Why are these computers being so difficult??
Miss you all!!
Diane + Riley
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