11/10

Kunming, Yunnan

Walking through Kunming at 5 in the afternoon, the harsh light of the dying day makes the dusty city look like the set of a cheap Western where I’m John Wayne and all the extras are Chinese.  After having lost two days of exploration time to sickness in Shenzhen, on the train I decided to head to Lijiang as fast as possible.  With hopes that I would eventually make it back to Kunming, I headed to the bus station and bought a ticket for the next one to Lijiang, the 9:00 overnight.  Wholly satisified and with a few hours to kill, I headed to the only sight in my guidebook that looked to be within walking distance of the bus station: a twin pair of old pagodas.  Built during the Tang dynasty (so, sometime between 600 and 900 AD), they weren’t a whole lot to look at but were interesting in that “been around for 1200 years” kind of way.  Kunming is a city clearly comfortable with Western presence, as I got less stares here than I have in parts of Shenzhen.  Still, I only got the briefest feel for the city, and would love to return with more time to check out the city itself and the surrounding parts of Yunnan province in general.  But, as I told myself on the train, its far easier to get back to Kunming than it would be to get back to Lijiang.  So, onward now to the central purpose of this whole vacation: Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge!