Kunming No.9 Your Times Up

Once we dragged ourselves from the train we we’re so relieved to see a beautiful blue sky, since it seemed so nice we decided to just walk the 2 or 3kms to our hostel. Almost immediately after leaving the station we realised that Kunming was a lot more laid back than Shanghai and most other Chinese cities, we didn’t have to run the gauntlet of taxi drivers, hotel reps and various other touts while shielding our ears from incessant battle between car horns & bicycle bells and were left quietly to meander our way through the streets to the hostel.

We had a booked the hostel a few days earlier over the net mainly just because of the name, it did also had quite a few good reviews. When we arrived at The Hump hostel, the reception/bar was being used for a press conference, but we still managed to get booked in fairly quickly. I’m not sure exactly what the press conference was for but it was something to do with the local indigenous tribes as amongst the journalists and cameramen were many young women and men wearing traditional costumes.


After unpacking and having a shower to wash the two days of train from ourselves we headed to the Laos consulate to see if we could get a Visa for the following week. It took nothing more than filling in a few forms, leaving a sizable amount of cash & our passports to secure our Laos visas and if we returned in three days they might even give us back our passports. We then wandered to the University district to try and find an English bookshop, we had been trying to get the Lonely Planet’s South East Asia on Shoestring book for a few weeks now without too much success. On the way we passed lots of new skyscrapers and fancy shopping malls, Kunming was definitely not being left out of China’s boom time.


Around the university there were plenty of interesting shops selling more than just your usual tack that you find in most of China’s shops; fancy stationers, 60’s Beat Writers Book Shop, Laid back coffee houses and numerous boutiques selling smart original clothing. We also found the bookshop and to Joanne’s great delight we managed to pick up the book we had been trying to find since Beijing which she greeted with a loud “Wooohhhooooo” in the middle of the shop.

On our way back to the hostel we passed by Pizza Hut and all the staff inside were wearing Father Christmas outfits and I’m sure we could hear Noddie Holder & the rest of Slade shouting their way through “I wish it could be Christmas everyday”. This really caught us by surprise as it was the first time Christmas had wandered under our radar, even though it was mid-November. I remember wandering down Sauchiehall Street one lunchtime last October and I nearly screamed out in frustration as I saw Marks & Spencer’s setting up their Christmas window displays, but I’m sure it will be a lot worse in Scotland than it will be for us in China.

Back at the Hostel we sat and had a beer in the roof garden and watched the locals flying kites and going about their business as the sun set over the city. The view from the Hostel was really good with two strikingly lit large ornamental gates set in a pedestrian area where quite a few stalls were being set up for a small night market. We also got chatting to a retired Austrian called Gunter who had also being travelling around China for the last six weeks but mainly in the west of China. That night we had dinner in the Brother Jiang restaurant down stairs from the hostel, nearly every street had a Brother Jiang and they always seemed quite busy. The Kunming district is famous for it’s across the bridge noodles but we didn’t really notice the difference from the other noodles we had in other parts of the country.


Next morning we caught up with all our internet duties, before heading down to the local markets. This is where we found our latest great street food, large slices of flat bread that tasted like a weird hybrid of potato scone & nan bread with sesame seeds & chives sprinkled over the top - a definite hit on the old taste buds. The market seemed to a have millions of stalls selling cheap shoes, I’m sure there might have been enough to cover every foot in the country. We also seen a whole street selling Christmas & New Year decorations, but every stall sold exactly the same gear I’m not sure if this is some Communist ideal about equality for the masses.

Every town or city in China had it’s own unique things that we will remember it for and Kunming is no different. On arriving we noticed that many of the female cyclists in town like to wear the type of sun visor that were all the rage for two weeks in the summer of 77 by wannabe tennis stars and bad poker players. Another stand out for Kunming was that many of the shops had MC’s outside extolling the value and street worthiness of the goods inside, many of these had more echo & delay effects than the pioneering 70’s Jamaican Dub DJ’s like U-Roy and Big Youth. We stood outside Ming Lee’s Emporium of Underwear with our Mandarin Book to try and translate some of the rhymes that the MC was belting out to the passers by, here’s some very rough translations.

Wake the town and tell the people
Ming Lee’s Shop is so unbeatable

Watch how the Dance floor Rocks
When you are wearing our Socks

Don’t you fret there will be no more frights
While you are wearing Ming Lee’s tights

No more shockings or mockings
You’ll look great in our stockings

No need to Travel Wide and Far
In search for the Kings of Bra

No need for a Blessed Rosary
With our splendid Hosiery

When wearing trousers, You’ll be fine
‘Cos you’ll never see a knicker line

SSSShhhhaaaabbbbbaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!


Another thing we haven’t really mentioned about China is the hundreds of massive one-stop shop Wedding Megaplexes which must have about 50 staff for every customer and also has more frilly dresses than you would find at a Can Can convention on the Moulin Rouge.


Saturday lunch time we checked out of The Hump so that we could move to the Hotel Gandu to watch the Celtic game that night. The hotel wasn’t on the map so we asked one of the staff from the Hump to write the name of the street in Mandarin so we could show a taxi driver. After a while he eventually gave us a bit of paper back with something written on it but we weren’t convinced it was the right thing as he kept going on about a number 26 bus.

We ventured out to the taxi rank just outside the hostel and showed the bit of paper to the taxi driver, she seemed to know where to go. After about 15 minutes she stopped at a busy cross-section and told us this was where the note said to let us off, we then tried to ask her where the hotel was but this wasn’t getting much response. Next thing she’s on the mobile and then she says she now knows, and takes off for another 5 minutes drive. Half way back along the road we stop outside the Police station and she thinks this is where we want. After another 5 minutes discussion and another phone call we’re heading back to the first place she tried to drop us off but this time she carries on another few minutes and we see the hotel. I’m not sure how she didn’t know it as it’s the biggest place in the area and had about 40 taxis outside it.

Once in the room we chilled out for a bit and watched BBC World for a bit, the first time we had seen any English speaking news channels since leaving Sydney over 9 weeks before hand. In the afternoon we wandered the streets surrounding the hotel to pick up some lunch, it was obvious that tourists don’t usually come to this part of the city as we had more than our usual stares. Mothers were picking up their kids and pointing at us and getting their kids to wave at the two weird westerners wandering about.

We wandered into a supermarket to pick up some things, which was bit more difficult than you would expect. At one counter we picked up some coffee sachets and we then had to wait for the counter girl to write out a receipt in triplicate so that we could pay for the coffee at the checkout, this happened at three other counters on our way round the shop. A job that should have taken 5 minutes turned into a half hour marathon of bureaucracy, but I suppose it kept another 5 or 6 people in jobs.

We found a small restaurant and with the aid of the mandarin book and some pointing we both had some great food and few beers for under 3 UK pounds. That night we sipped some beers while watching the game and chilled out in the comfortable room, we never did get round to using the swimming pool, billiards room or sip cocktails in any of it‘s numerous bars. The following day we didn’t do too much but use the internet and watch some movies.

After getting some dinner at the same place the night before we decided to get our haircut and we had noticed quite a popular place on the way to the restaurant. Joanne hadn’t had her hair cut since Mexico when they burnt her hair with too much chemicals and quite naturally was a bit apprehensive. Things got off to a good start when we both got a 15 minute head massage, Joanne even got her back prodded and slapped for an extra 10 minutes. We both survived without any disasters and were quite pleased for the whole experience only cost 20 Yuan which was about 1 pound fifty.

On Monday we booked back into the Hump for a night, picked up our passports and visas from the Laos consulate and we also managed to book two bus tickets to Mengla (the nearest town to the Laos Border) for the following afternoon. We also picked up quite a few cheap DVDs to watch on the laptop as this was probably going to be our last chance of cheap counterfeit goods in China. Lots of new signs and banners had been put up around promoting the City, one we noticed was “Everyday is Spring in Kunming” which was a lie as it was absolutely freezing. By this point we really did want to head to South East Asia and get some heat back into our bones and some sunshine on our faces. Out of the six weeks in China we were probably lucky to have 5 or 6 days of blue sky in total. We didn’t bother leaving the hostel that night and once again had a few beers and dinner in this lively place.


Next day we loaded up on the potato scone / nan bread hybrid and made our way to the bus station for our overnight trip south to Mengla and then hopefully a short hop skip and jump over the border to Laos