Kunming - Saturday 26th November

MT - Road Trip! Much anticipated drive from Kunming to Chiang Mai through Yunnan, Laos and Thailand is underway. We don’t actually start until Tuesday so have taken a few days to check out Kunming.

There is some degree of trepidation going to any major Chinese city these days as they all seem to be ongoing construction sites producing what seems to be an endless succession of soulless buildings designed to a standard that manages to seemlessly combine drab blandness with stunning vulgarity.

First impressions of Kunming were not great as we drove from the airport to the hotel through a very familiar background, although on the plus side the air is clean as there is no major heavy industry nearby. However, the closer we got to the hotel, the more interesting the city became, as we passed hordes of people strolling round a lake. Having checked in and dumped our stuff we ventured out into the mingling throng all enjoying a great time.

The lake is clearly a popular destination, with the main attraction being the apparently ad-hoc performances of a variety of musical groups and ethnic dancing groups. Whilst some (actually a lot) of the music might not be to everyone’s taste, the enthusiasm of both performers and crowds was infectious and wandering around we were swept up in a great sense of bonhomie.

When we first moved to Hong Kong in the seventies, I was about a foot taller than the locals and as foreigners we were the source of much fascination. Much has changed since then thanks to junk food and prosperity. It was therefore somewhat of a jolt to realise that a similar scenario was now being experienced here in Kunming some thirty years later. It was pretty clear that they don’t get to see too many foreigners around these parts  (especially not redheads! J), but the friendliness of the people was outstanding with a lot of “hellos”, taking of pictures and shaking of hands.

The evening continued at the same level with the tour guide finding us a phenomenal restaurant built in the style of the old Beijing hutong establishments. It does however appear that people eat rather early here as although we got to the restaurant at 7 pm, we were faced with an amount of “Bal-ham”esque responses to requests for the specialities of the house. Not to worry, what they did manage to produce was exceptional and the trip can not have started better.