We spent a total of two nights and one full day in Kūnmíng and I'm sorry to say that was enough for us. I know I may run the risk of offending someone but, in our view, Kūnmíng is one of the most soulless cities we’d visited in China and it was a good decision to spend as little time there as possible (apologies to anyone from Kūnming reading this!).
It did have some pluses though. This was the cheapest room that we had found in China and, at £6/night, was excellent value (spot the TV and even a phone!! Very exciting!).
The hostel was, however, very difficult to find - the taxi driver didn't speak/read English and didn't know where it was so dropped us at a big hotel somewhere in the vicinity. I spent a good half hour with the really helpful staff trying to explain where we wanted to go and ask how we'd get there. They even let me use the phone to call the hostel but the folk on the other end didn't speak English either. It was getting very late (well after 11pm) and Euan was outside with the bags playing tug-of-war with the hotel porter, trying to explain that we weren't staying there so he didn't need to take our bags! We were all struggling to make sense of what each other was saying but got there in the end. All good fun and a good test of patience on both sides!
Our day in Kūnmíng was unfruitful and we even resorted to wandering into supermarkets (where we saw a live fish objecting to being weighed by flipping out of scales and onto the floor - it had already been banged on the floor twice by the lady behind the counter!)
investigating the wonderful array of dried petals, flowers, buds, stems, leaves, fruit (you name it!) that was on display
complete with a wee glass of what it would look like made up as tea.
Euan had what could possibly be the cheapest haircut ever (£1) and reluctantly agreed to a photo - those of you who know Euan will know its a lot shorter than normal!
Kūnmíng was our last stop in China and we were off to Laos on the 15th. Our Chinese visas were nearly up and having experienced Chinese bureaucracy, we daren't risk overstaying!
href="http://www.blogger.com/url">
View Larger Map
It did have some pluses though. This was the cheapest room that we had found in China and, at £6/night, was excellent value (spot the TV and even a phone!! Very exciting!).
The hostel was, however, very difficult to find - the taxi driver didn't speak/read English and didn't know where it was so dropped us at a big hotel somewhere in the vicinity. I spent a good half hour with the really helpful staff trying to explain where we wanted to go and ask how we'd get there. They even let me use the phone to call the hostel but the folk on the other end didn't speak English either. It was getting very late (well after 11pm) and Euan was outside with the bags playing tug-of-war with the hotel porter, trying to explain that we weren't staying there so he didn't need to take our bags! We were all struggling to make sense of what each other was saying but got there in the end. All good fun and a good test of patience on both sides!
Our day in Kūnmíng was unfruitful and we even resorted to wandering into supermarkets (where we saw a live fish objecting to being weighed by flipping out of scales and onto the floor - it had already been banged on the floor twice by the lady behind the counter!)
investigating the wonderful array of dried petals, flowers, buds, stems, leaves, fruit (you name it!) that was on display
complete with a wee glass of what it would look like made up as tea.
Euan had what could possibly be the cheapest haircut ever (£1) and reluctantly agreed to a photo - those of you who know Euan will know its a lot shorter than normal!
Kūnmíng was our last stop in China and we were off to Laos on the 15th. Our Chinese visas were nearly up and having experienced Chinese bureaucracy, we daren't risk overstaying!
href="http://www.blogger.com/url">
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment