Hanna's Travels

...was an educational experience. Whew. And let me just say: perception. Can be treacherous. Believe me, I'm somewhat familiar with the topic. ;-)
But first things first - three days ago I had to make a decision. As time is scarce, I had to choose  between either going to Lijiang and Dali in northern Yunnan (first one is a UNESCO world heritage site and renowned for its historic old town, the second one is just THE image of picturesque Yunnan; however, both places are becoming very touristy) OR travel to the quaint south and the see the famed rice fields of Yuanyang (authentic, rural, NOT urbanized). So if you know me well, you know what I picked. Yesss, the second one... I may come back one day and see the first two ones anyways... the time when I truly head for Shangri-La - which is really just 200 km further north of Lijiang!
So, countryside it was! But first, getting to the bus station. And lo and behold, there are (to my knowledge) THREE bus stations in town and the one I had to go to was of course the farthest away. No trouble, I think, I'll just take my time...and the bus. Which worked fine, until I had to change buses. Since I didn't make the connection, I just took a cab and told the driver with hands, map and ticket (the departure station just HAD to be printed on it) and she said "nan #$*(# @#(* " - which was fine with me, since "nan" means "south" and I needed to get to the South Bus Station. After twenty minutes, I grew a bit anxious. Usually, Chinese street names are ordered as being "bei" (north of the city center) or "nan" (south of the city center, the same applies to east, "dong", and west, "xi"). However, the way the taxi was going was in streets that were already accompanied by "north" or "bei" again (btw, Beijing means "northern capital", now guess what Nanjing stands for!). As I was getting more and more worried (and the time for the bus departure got closer and closer) I made that much of a fuss that the taxi driver actually stopped on the curb of the speedway and tried to tell me where we were going. Problem here? The bus station starts with "Nanbu", whereas a negation is usually expressed by saying "bu" or "wei". Try to imagine the conversation for yourselves... it involved me trying to piece together "not north" and "south please". Oh my... but miraculously, we made it there... albeit at a hefty
price, since the south bus station is really, really far out of the city. Btw, finding the correct bus was a piece of cake then. It was quite nice that there was another westerner ("laowei" for foreigner, as I'm often being called here) on the bus and so we chatted a bit during the ensuing 7 hours. And we really had an eye opener then. You know, Yunnan is one of the provinces that is most famed for its beautiful and lush nature. The ground is so fertile here, that every spare patch of land is used for agriculture. And they grow such a variety of things - fruits (in the mountains even bananas and other tropical  fruits), vegetables and crops such as rice and corn. Spices are grown as well, since you can't evade the pretty chilis on the markets (and in the food, too). The weather was perfect for traveling -  overcast and not too clear. I have to say it's quite often a bit hazy and misty in Yunnan, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to it. That is, until I saw the factories. And the smoke (oh the colors I saw!). And the plants in the vicinity. And suddenly, it all did not look too picturesque again but much more like a grim example of what becomes of a great place when you just develop without taking precautions for the environment's sake. So both of us grew very still while traveling on on a newly-built speedway, right into the heart of Yunnan. The area grew more and more hilly and it was in those valleys, where the exhaust and the prevailing fog combined to make a very intense smog. You know, I had started off onto this short trip expecting lush nature and the like... but I got agricultural lands with factories plump in the middle. Oh my... but 5 hours into the trip, things suddenly changed. Gone were the factories, gone were the overcrowded and hastily developed cities. Instead, we were driving alongside mountain roads, which grew ever smaller and narrower until all side markings were gone and there were no more barriers on the lower side. Add to that some good honking and fast driving and you got a Hanna who was happy to only sit in the second, but not the first row. ;-)

But we arrived safe and sound at Yuanyang. I had a wonderful photo tour across the rice fields before and during sunset (I hope I'll get to upload photos before getting back to Germany!) and managed to drain my camera batteries towards the end of that. So the next morning (today) had me taking no pix at all. :-( Which is a real pity, since the village was mainly inhabitated by minority people and not Han Chinese, visible through their colorful traditional dresses. And it's also a pity because the place was just soooo unlike what I had seen in China before. Take a noisy, lively and not too clean Chinese market and multiply it by ten and you're right there in Yuanyang.

They had EVERYTHING there, that you would want or not want to eat. Some of these things I didn't know, others I didn't suspect that anyone would want to eat them (live hornets in sauce, anyone?) and yet again others sadly confirmed one of my fears (skinned dog, ready to take home and roast, who would like to eat Rex or Brutus?). Truly educational... but I was somehow not too unhappy when I was going back to Kunming again. And the most amazing thing on the way back? Blue skies, slightly overcast, sun rays and... the landscape looked DRAMATICALLY different. Funny, how just that changed my perception of the dreariness or not dreariness of the area. Perception... pfff. ;-)
Btw, back in Kunming, I wasted three hours trying to get new batteries for my camera. Don't ask me about the number of rolls of slide film in my back, but spare batteries? Nah. They usually last for a year, so I simply forgot about them. BAD mistake in the age of digital cameras and when you have an odd battery size. But that was solved as well, I got back to my great hostel, went out again to buy a new English book (long train ride coming up tomorrow!) and even got some tasty street food on the way (even though I didn't get the desired jiaozi, which might be known as "dumplings" or "potstickers" to some of you). I'll try to get up early tomorrow to see the grannies swirling their ribbons and others do their tai chi morning exercise in the city park, maybe I'll also do some market watching before hopping onto the train. The next destination is Guilin, the picturesque and famous town on the Li River.

More later! Zai jian!