Budget: 450 Yuan/$75; Spent: 330 Yuan/$55
Jeff here.
Today was an uneventful day. We woke up at 6:30am to pack up our stuff for our drive out of Yuanyang to Kunming. Our taxi left our hostel at 7:30am, so we had ordered breakfast the night before. Since we would be traveling for eight hours by taxi and bus, we decided to order a big breakfast. It was a wise decision since we didn’t eat until 7:30pm.
Our taxi ride into Xinjie took about an hour and we were riding beside a guy named Paul from Manchester, England. We chatted nearly the whole time. He had been in China for 6 weeks and had another 2 weeks left.
Since we had driven into our hostel during the night, it was a very interesting ride through the mountains. The rice terraces are absolutely spectacular, as are the mountains and valleys. We arrived into Xinjie, where the bus station is, and bought our tickets. We were disappointed to learn that we would not be riding in a sleeper bus! I was really looking forward to lying down after a short sleep.
We traveled with four other people from our hostel: Paul, Ires and Michael (from Holland), as well as Sara (from Israel). The entire bus trip was pretty uneventful, other than the scenery and a really cute baby girl and her parents sitting in from of us. A couple times the little girl, who must have been about one year old, looked at us and gave us huge smiles. It was very cute. It made me miss Marky, my nephew. Actually, for much of the bus ride my family and friends were on my mind. I wasn’t necessarily sad, but appreciative of the fact that I have so many amazing people in my life. For some strange reason, I feel like this trip will bring me closer to those I love. Call me crazy.
We arrived in Kunming around 4pm and already knew we had a couple busses to take to get to our hostel. Paul and Sara were both going in the same direction as us, so we all went together. We found the first bus easy enough, but we had to ride it the entire length of its route, from beginning to end. I’ll tell you, standing on a bus wearing a heavy backpack for an hour straight is no easy task! Well, to be honest, I got to put down my backpack for about 15 minutes when Patty got a seat on the bus. So it could have been worse!
The change of busses happened pretty seamlessly. Paul left us to find a train out of Kunming. We’re not exactly sure where he was heading, though. It wasn’t long after that when we found our hostel. By this point, Sara had also left us to find her own hostel and we were joined by another girl who we picked up during the change of busses. We think her name is Leonie, but we’re not 100% sure. I had to do an internet search to even figure out that guess! She helped us get to the hostel, where she is also staying.
We are quite pleased with our hostel. We have a private room with no bathroom, and it’s such a relief to be able to get away from people! We don’t even really care that much about the shared bathroom. The only negative thing reviews said about this place is that it is surrounded by a lot of nightlife and can be loud. I can see how this could be true. The reception is more like a bar than a hostel. It’s a different kind of atmosphere than we’re used to, but it’s not unwelcome. Here’s the view from our hostel’s terrace:
We had already found a place in Lonely Planet that sounded like a great place to eat dinner, and it was about a kilometer away from our hostel, so we headed off in that direction. Within about 10 minutes we were at the place we assumed was the restaurant we were looking for. We weren’t sure because there were no signs with English characters, but as far as we could tell from the map in the book, this had to be the place, so in we went. Once we sat down, the waitress brought us an iPad with pictures of fish on it. We also noticed the heater in the centre of the table. Terrified that this was another hot pot restaurant (and it was!) we ran out the door. We felt bad since we had kind of ordered already and the waitress was actually pulling a live fish out of a tank for us, but we could not endure that experience again! We also knew it wasn’t the restaurant our book had recommended.
We wandered around for a little bit, obviously looking very confused, because a very nice Chinese girl approached us and asked if she could help us. I think this is a first in China. People so rarely speak English here, even young adults. Once she saw what we were looking for, she knew exactly where it was and directed us there. How the map in Lonely Planet was supposed to get us to this restaurant is a mystery to us. What a piece of garbage that thing is sometimes.
We ended up having quite a nice meal. Our book recommended a BBQ fish and that’s what we think we ordered, as well as some fried pork (we think), and some ground beef with veggies dish. The BBQ fish was delicious. It was also super spicy. If we hadn’t ordered a bowl of white rice, I don’t think we could have eaten it! Here’s a pic:
After dinner, we just headed back to our hostel, ordered a couple of drinks and began catching up on our blog. It was a nice evening!
Sorry to hear about your problems with the Lonely Planet Guide. I'm hoping it's the 2012/13 version. In any case, I've never used that brand before, but I've certainly had difficulties with travel books, too. It'll be nice when the internet is as ubiquitous as running water/electricity and we can simply access a travel site from anywhere that dynamically updates like a Wiki. I would imagine that you haven't bought all the travel books for your jouney yet, so perhaps trying a different brand is in order?
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