[This is my Trail] Better Late Than Never?

[Rachelle]

A relatively long tale of the rest of my Spring Festival Shenanigans...

So when we last left my tale of Chinese New Year adventure, we were in Mengzi and mostly eating and eating and eating. That comprised the first few days of the trip. But there were more adventures in our future.

The day after the New Year's festivities, we took a day trip to Gejiu, because there was food there that also needed to be sampled, naturally. It's fun traveling with people who know the area because they can order you the best local food (and then pay for it too!). First we had some BBQ and a special pancake thing. Then we went to a mountain that overlooks the city. At first there were rumors that we would walk up the mountain (the Chinese have built stairs everywhere, so hiking does not really happen), but it was more than 2000 stairs up, so thankfully we decided to ride a gondola type thing up instead. My friend and I didn't really know what was up there, but when we arrived the first thing the others wanted to do was eat again! Haha...after we had eaten some snacks on the way up. We looked around a temple and took in the view (of the 7th cleanest city in China, by the way!), and then settled in for some mid-afternoon snacks of some special kinds of grains. I have no idea what to call them. Similar to rice. Maybe more like cous cous. Look at the piture and decide for yourself what they are. This city is famous for them, and they were quite good. I always appreciate a break from rice! Then we walked down the stairs...and boy did we regret it the next day(s). Soooo sore. Those of us born in 1982 decided to stop and take a picture by our step. We decided we were too full to eat dinner--finally I convinced them that I could not possibly eat one more bite--and went to sing karaoke instead.

The next day, 4 of us took a day trip to a Miao minority village and festival a couple hours outside of town. It wasn't exactly clear what this festival was and we didn't really have that many details. We arrived before it started and so decided to eat (naturally). We had some random snacks and some grilled potatoes. The woman cooking the potatoes did not think I would eat the spicy "lajiao" dip (since I was a foreigner and Chinese for some reason all believe that no foreigner likes to eat anything remotely spicy--I have no idea why they think this, even people who have never met a foreigner!), so she only gave me half a bowl. I finished it all and asked for some more and she gave me the weirdest look ever. The Chinese girls had a good laugh about that. And I'm sure the potato woman told all her friends that she now had first hand evidence that foreigners did indeed eat spicy food. There wasn't really all that much going on at the festival--definitely a lot of people there in their best traditional clothes, but I think the actual festival part may have been later or the next day. There were carnival games and such, though, and it was fun to be in a place that was not a tourist attraction. There were definitely some people trying to clandestinely take pictures of me on their camera phones. I don't understand why they don't just ask. I would even take one with them...but anyway. Of course, I was taking lots of my own pictures. We also met the cutest old woman in traditonal clothes and when my friend asked to take a picture of her, she was totally working it. Hilarious!

Then my co-worker Jiang and I went to Jianshui, a town famous for having a lot of old style buildings, which is rare these days as they seem to be tearing them down to build new shopping malls 24-7, at least in Kunming. It was a little bit touristy, but one of the old gates is quite nice and apparently the apprentice to the mater that built that gate went on to build the Tiananmen gate in Beijing. They had an interesting minority dance show inside of the gate, and that was pretty cool. The Jianshui area is also famous for a certain type of pottery, so we went to a village outside of the town to explore. We paid a guy to teach us how to make vases on the pottery wheel and then let us play around and cook us lunch, and that was really fun. My creations weren't as bad as I feared, but we didn't have time to let them dry, bake, etc., so we couldn't bring them home. Too bad. Later we rode a horse drawn carraige down the old street and saw the gates into a famous Confuscian temple and old mansion and gardens, but they had jacked their prices up like crazy for the holiday week, so we didn't go inside. We're cheap. We admit it.

Jiang's mother was kind of sick, so she decided she should go back to Kunming to take her to the doctor (traditional Chinese filial piety). I didn't want to go back to Kunming just yet, so I decided to head on to Yuanyang alone. We said farewell at the bus station and I headed off into the unknown. Yuanyang is famous for its rice terraces, but the most convenient guesthouse was already booked up for the holiday, so I wasn't sure what I would find upon arrival. I wanted to get to the old part of the town, which in many Chinese towns is not the same place as the new town--and the bus always takes you to the new town. I ended up getting there later than I'd hoped as the road was terrible and took forever, but luckily some other friendly Chinese people were going to the same place. I just hooked up with them to ride up to the old town, but ended up eating (a very very late) dinner, spending the night, and going to see the sun rise over the rice terraces at some completely ungodly hour with them--3 women from Chengdu and 4 guys from Beijing. I'm pretty sure I might have offended them all in the end as they wanted me to be more friendly and talk more, but I find 7 Chinese people who don't really speak much English quite intimidating--especially after only 4 hours of sleep. Chinese people are quite friendly though, and I really appreciated their help as it was more difficult to arrange the van to the old city and the sunrise outing than I would have thought, and I'm sure I would have failed miserably on my own. The place wasn't very western tourist friendly; another white guy ran up to me as I was leaving almost in despearation because he didn't know where to stay, couldn't speak a word of Chinese, etc. This reminded me why I really don't like to travel alone, even though I could probably get by with my Chinese. Anyway, the terraces did look cool with the water in them, but there were way too many people for it to be an enjoyable experience (500+ at the place to watch the sunrise). I did snap a few good pictures, though, and decided to head back to Kunming after lunch.

I had to take a bus back to the new town, then back to Gejiu, and then on to Kunming. I met another nice young couple on the first bus who were also going to Kunming, so we ended up traveling together and the girl bought me dinner in Gejiu. Chinese people really are awesome like that. And it really is nice to let a Chinese person do the ticket buying, etc. so you know you're not getting ripped off.

So I got back to Kunming safe and sound and that's the end of my stories of Spring Festival '09. The next big holiday is in October, and I'm tentatively planning on going to Laos--if I can save up some money and find some traveling buddies!

Oh, and by the way, this whole trip cost barely more than $100US, but I owe A LOT of people meals. I don't think I paid for one the entire week...except a few breakfasts and snacks for the road. I'd like to attribute it to my stunning good looks or witty Chinese banter....but I'm pretty sure it was just the white skin. Oh well.

Click here for more pictures from the trip...

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 3/14/2009 07:33:00 AM