Laos

The first week in October was China's National Day, the anniversary of the Liberation, or Communist takeover depending on your perspective. This year was especially noteworthy because it was the 60th anniversary. Most people have a few days off of work and school for this holiday, and I figured by skipping a few days of school, I could actually have 10 days off in a row. In recent years, shopping and travel have been heavily promoted as vacation activities here (to increase domestic consumption), and since Kunming is a nice place to go in China, it seemed like a good time to beat the rush and leave town.

But where to go? Going anyplace in the country was sure to be a transportation nightmare. I wasn't really in the mood to "plan" a trip and seriously considered staying home and studying (boring), but then in late September on a local website I saw a post from someone looking for a travel partner to South Asia. She was open about destination and even better, was a native Mandarin speaker. Mira and I met and decided to go to Laos, a country I didn't know much about and hadn't seriously considered visiting. It borders China, though, and it's easy to get a visa at the border, so it was the perfect choice for a no-plan trip. For the next week, we emailed back and forth about details. From some friends, Mira had heard of a place in Laos with treehouses called the GibbonExperience and as soon as I read about it on their website, I really wanted to go too. I also wanted to see Plain of Jars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_of_Jars) so we decided to try to see those two places to start, and then play it by ear.

We met for the second time at the bus stop and then headed downtown to take the night bus to the border. We bought tickets from the driver for the 7pm bus, and he said he would drop us at a crossroads a few miles across the border at a town that had a bus station and lots of transport to the town we were hoping to reach by the first night. He claimed we would be there by 10 am. This sounded rather fishy to me. In my brief research, I’d never heard of the crossroads town. It wasn’t even on the Google map I’d printed, so it seemed unlikely there was a bus station there. And, it seemed impossible to get that far in only 15 hours. I was skeptical, but Mira felt sure that the driver wouldn’t lie to us and so we paid a bit extra to be taken the extra distance. I should mention that Mira is 25 and had never been out of China.

The 7pm bus finally left at 8:30 and we were off. About 4 hours south of Kunming, the road started to get a little rough. There were long stretches of bumpiness interspersed with prolonged periods of violent jostling. The overnight bus is also known as the sleeper bus, since there are no seats, only bunk bed-type enclosures. Each one is perhaps 18 inches wide, and if I laid out flat my feet pressed against the bottom (remember, I’m short). Of course, I got no sleep.

We finally got to the Chinese side of the border at about 9 am. Mira decided she needed some more money before we crossed, so we headed back through town on foot to get to the only ATM. I mentioned several times that we should hurry because the bus might leave us, but she was sure they wouldn’t since the other people on the bus knew we’d be back. Of course, when we got back in sight of where we’d left the bus, it was nowhere to be seen. Mira was shocked. I wouldn’t have minded too much but our bags were on the bus. Fortunately the border was less than half a mile up the road and so I started running. Mira followed me and we caught the bus at the Chinese border.

It took awhile for the border police to unload all the bags and inspect them, but by 10am, we were heading to the Laos border. Since this was the second day of the Chinese holiday, the border was crawling with Chinese travelers. The Chinese are not known for forming lines, and so every window of the sleepy little Laos government building was overrun with disorderly mobs of people trying to get forms, trying to get visas, trying to get through. It was complete insanity. It took us 3 hours to get across. Reports that I’ve read say it typically takes maybe 30 minutes tops.

But, finally we were in Laos. Wow, what a difference. Laos is poor. Really poor. And very quiet compared to China. There aren’t too many cars, people don’t honk every 30 seconds, and there is very little development, at least in Northern Laos. The mountains are green and beautiful, but it’s easy to see that there isn’t much forest remaining, a few small patches here and there, but most of the trees have been cut down. It was a little depressing.

Finally at 3pm, we arrived at the crossroads. Of course, there was no bus station. I figured we could hitchhike since it was only about 20 miles to the town, but there were practically no cars. We stood around for about an hour and finally got a guy to drive us out there for more than we wanted to pay, but he wouldn’t budge. We didn’t really have any other options, so we piled into the truck and headed down the road.

We got to Louang Namtha about 5 pm. It’s a small town with seemingly more chickens than people. Tourism is just starting to discover this place, so it’s still laid back, friendly and cheap. We found a very nice guesthouse for $3 a night, spotlessly clean, very well decorated, very friendly (Zuela’s Guesthouse). After exploring for a while, we went to the night market to sample some food and watch the town.

The small outdoor market has an endless variety of food, tables of local women selling little piles of leaves and fruits and veggies and who knows what all stewed together in different spicy combinations with bags of sticky rice to go with it. No chopsticks. In Laos, you eat with your fingers. We got some food and sat down on some old wooden tables to relax and eat. We met a funny woman from Thailand and spent the rest of the night laughing with her over BeerLao, which is the local brew. I’m not a big beer drinker, but Laos beer is excellent and it was a perfect chaser to the spicy food. The local vendors came by repeatedly to try to get us to buy their handcrafted trinkets, and the multitude of terminally pregnant market dogs circled constantly looking for bones and scraps. We had to catch the early bus to the next town in the morning, so after a few hours, we said goodbye and headed back to the room and, at last, some sleep.

The next day, we got on the bus for Houay xia on the Mekong River. The bus was oldish, but not too bad. Every seat was full, but no livestock in the bus, and only a few people sitting on stools in the aisle. People were quiet, calm and orderly. The road was constructed within the past few years and is reportedly now one of the best roads in Laos. There are occasional washouts and bare rock patches, also some serious potholes, but basically a good road. It took about 4 hours to get to the town, and on the way we passed through many villages with bamboo huts on stilts and half naked children running on the side of the highway. All flat land was covered with rice paddies (Laotians eat 350 pounds of rice per person per year), so there was green everywhere, and still no real forest left on the mountains.
When we got to the town, we went to check in at the Gibbon Experience office first.

The trip is quite expensive, 160 Euros, or about $240 (at the time). I saw it as a contribution to maintaining forest habitat rather than paying for accommodations, and that’s basically what it turned out to be. While waiting in the office, we saw a group of Westerners returning from their stay in the forest, and I was really struck by how incredibly big Westerners are. How does this happen? I guess Corn Flakes really are fortified with 8 essential vitamins and iron. After paying, we found a nearby guesthouse to spend the night and then explored the town a bit.

The town is right on the Mekong, and since the other side of the river is Thailand, it’s a border town. Like most border towns, it’s not terribly charming. Many tourists pass through here, and that’s about the extent of it. Apparently the Chinese are planning a big gambling complex up the river, so the whole area is soon to change dramatically. Lots of jobs for locals, but since most of the population is Buddhist and very reserved and conservative, I’m not sure how well this is going to turn out. Not so well I suspect.

The next morning we piled into a truck with four others for the several hour trip to the base village. The first hour was on mostly paved road, and then we drove across a river to the next leg, all dirt and ruts as we headed into the mountains. It was more rural, more beautiful, and much poorer.

The village where we started our hike was full of naked children, chickens, turkeys, donkeys, waterbuffalo and locals who seemed pretty accustomed to truckloads of foreigners shuttling through their village. I’m not sure it that’s a good thing but I’m sure they can use the work since their lives seem pretty hard so it’s difficult to say.

The six of us headed out with our two local guides who spoke very little English and were really shepherds rather than guides. Besides Mira and me, there was a British couple who were decided eco-tourists, just off a trekking trip to Borneo and they seemed to talk about little else. The other two were a young Israeli couple who seemed pretty friendly and had decent English. The weather was hot, and even though I’d been sweating since I got to Laos, hiking made me sweat even more. The trail was pretty minimal in places, but there was so much to see, new plants and an endless variety of huge butterflies I several times mistook for birds. We hiked fast up and down the hills, since stopping invited mosquitoes, leeches and more sweat.

After an hour or so, we got to a hut, had some water and put on our harnesses. Soon, we came to our first zipline. I thought it would be slightly scary and exciting, but it wasn’t scary at all. The harness is just like a rock-climbing harness, and basically clips onto a little wheeled apparatus with a piece of tire for a brake. You fit the wheels over the line and jump off and then fly through the trees on a wire line. The forest below is so beautiful, and the cool wind is great, but it goes by so fast there isn’t time to be scared. I was almost never able to make it to the end of the line and so had to pull myself to the end every time. The heavier folks had no problem and always had to brake to avoid hitting the tree on the landing platform. There were many lines to cross, so it was hike/zip/hike/zip etc., for about 3 hours until we got to the first treehouse where we spent the night.

The treehouses can only be reached by ziplining because they are all high in the trees, maybe 50-80 feet up. They have water, which includes a shower and a Chinese-style toilet that opens onto the forest floor below (fertilizer), a stove to heat water, and mattresses on the floor with mosquito netting. Nothing fancy, but adequate and the view is spectacular. Local people brought rice and vegetables three times a day via ziplines. The food was pretty basic and bland and everyone was totally sick of rice by the third day. The coffee was great though, so I was happy.

That night was a full moon, and the forest was really beautiful in the moonlight. The forest was pretty quiet, but I heard what I’m pretty sure were gibbons most of the night. They have a throat pouch that inflates when they call so they make a really loud, really bizarre, mechanical sound. In the middle of the night, one started calling from the tree right next to ours. It went on for 20 minutes and it was really strange. I managed to record it, but unfortunately the recording is not very good.

The next day was pretty much the same as the first, hiking through the heat and leeches and mosquitos to the next treehouse. We stopped to swim at a waterfall with a swim hole and it felt so good to be wet and cool but as soon as I got out I started sweating again. I also discovered a leech that had eaten through my sock to enjoy a tasty meal on my foot. The anticoagulant they inject is really powerful. My foot bled freely for two hours and nothing I tried would stop the bleeding. No pain though.

The second treehouse was a little smaller than the first one, and there were also lots of ants and some alarmingly huge spiders. But, it was by a river and the sound of the water was very relaxing. No gibbons that night, and I actually fell asleep for awhile. I’d hoped to see lots of birds, but the mornings were always very misty and foggy and that’s when the birds were feeding in the trees, so although I heard a lot of birds, I saw almost none.

On the third day, after a big bowl of…rice…we hiked out of the forest, across a few rivers and past several tiny hill villages. We finally reached the base village and piled into the truck for the ride back. Mira and I had to ride in the back of the mini pickup, and since there wasn’t room to sit down, I stood up and held onto the back of the cab. This was actually the most exciting part of the trip, since we drove under a number of low-hanging trees and vines, so I really had to hang on and pay attention. It was a great view too, but after two hours, I was very sunburned and very exhausted. We stopped for a lunch of…rice…and then finally made it back to the town. We wasted no time in finding a room and getting out of the sun.

The next day, we took another bus back to Louang Namtha. I’d considered instead taking a boat down the Mekong to another town I’d heard about and then several long bus rides to get to Plain of Jars, but since that would mean two days on the river, and ultimately a more than 24-hour bus ride back to Kunming, I decided I was too tired. Next time. We relaxed in town and again went to the colorful night market and met some other travelers, and the next day Mira took the bus to Kunming. I decided to stay another day to see the surrounding area. For just over $1, I rented a very decent mountain bike for the day and went exploring. There are some Buddhist temples in the hills, and also some waterfalls and a number of villages.

The next day, I decided to take the bus back to China, and spend the night in Jinghong to see the botanical garden, then take the night bus back to Kunming. It took about 7 hours to get to Jinghong, and when I got off the bus, it was definitely not Laos anymore. It seemed even hotter and there was lots of noise, honking traffic, and the typical chaos of a booming Chinese city. I hiked through town in search of a guesthouse I’d read about, but I got there only to find it had been torn down to make way for yet another luxury high-rise. Although I could easily have found another place to stay, I decided right then to return to the bus station and get on the next bus to Kunming, a louder, more bustling city that is at least much cooler and more familiar. After a bumpy sleepless night on the sleeper bus, I got to Kunming about 6 am and after a few more local bus rides, I was home and happily rediscovered the inexpressible pleasure of not being bitten by insects. The next day, I was back in school.

To see pictures, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/melindacorrell. I can upload pictures, but the site is blocked, so I can’t see or modify the layout. I also can’t get to my blog anymore. I’d hoped that after the 60th anniversary celebration, the government would lighten up a little and loosen the restrictions, but instead, they’ve added features to the firewall so that proxy servers no longer work and even VPNs have trouble. And, more sites are blocked. It’s a little spooky. So, this is the last post. If you want to receive updates by email, send me an email and I’ll put you on the list. Otherwise, thanks for reading!

Wu Che Ri

I really enjoyed No Car Day yesterday. Private cars were prohibited from entering the central section of Kunming. My school is in that area, and I have to say it was so much more pleasant with only the taxis and buses blowing their horns. There was almost no traffic so the city was wonderfully calm.

I read in the news this morning that China as a whole adds 10% more cars every year; Kunming adds 18% more, so traffic is becomming an increasing problem here. As of 2007, that meant 560 more cars on Kunming roads every day. Since 2009 broke all records for auto sales in China, the number of new cars on the road each day is now much larger.

And it's not just new cars. The vast majority of new car purchases are made by new drivers, so the city adds 100s of new drivers every day. New and inexperienced drivers. They drive just like they rode bikes and later motorbikes, which is to say very pragmatically. Traffic lights, lane markers, signs, all are seen as suggestions to be followed if convenient. Or not, which leads to some seriously chaotic traffic snarls. Every intersection is a zoo as cars, buses, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, donkeys, etc., run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, turn against oncoming traffic, pass on the right going the wrong way, basically inserting their vehicle wherever it will fit. Of course there are traffic cops at every corner, but they are basically ignored. I've only seen a few fender benders, but my neighborhood is home to number of small autobody shops and they are busy from dawn to dusk seven days a week.

Fortunately, because there are so many vehicles on the road, no one can drive very fast. This is an especially good thing if you are a pedestrian because pedestrians are the bottom of the barrel. It doesn't matter if you are walking on the street, in the crosswalk, or on the sidewalk, cars have the right-of-way and they will take it. The driver honking his horn is not saying, "Please get out of my way." He is saying, "This may be the last sound you hear." But they aren't at all angry or malicious about it. They will simply run you over if you don't move and they can't go around you.

Despite the chaos, it all seems orchestrated in some weird way. If you keep moving and don't do anything unexpected, the traffic just slowly flows along. There is no overt agression, no road rage. Even when it comes to a complete standstill, people honk, but no one comes unglued. Anyone that can move through the crush of vehicles does, and anyone that can't just bides their time. When I first came to China, I found even crossing the street quite frightening, but now it just seems normal. Still, yesterday was really nice. I wish every day was No Car Day.

On vacation

I decided to take a few days vacation before the semester gets started again. I
went to Dali, a very touristy town northeast of Kunming, about 4 hours by bus. Dali is typical of every culturally significant location in China; it's basically been torn down and "restored" to a large open-air shopping mall. From everything I'd heard about Dali, I knew that I wouldn't like it, but my objective was not the town, it was the mountain range to the west of the town, the Cangshan range. I wanted to take a break from the gritty, teaming, chaotic marketplace that is China and get out into some nature.

The bus ride was beautiful, through green valleys terraced for crops, the same
terraces they have used for thousands of years. The white-washed brick villages clustered on the sides of the hills and the fish ponds in each valley were so
picturesque. Unfortunately there was no chance to take any pictures.

Due to transportation timing, I had to spend one night in Dali, and it was every bit as touristy as I'd been led to expect. I stayed in one of the many guesthouses, very simple and basic, but friendly. That night, I sampled some of the chuan (skewers of meat, veggies, tofu, etc. roasted over coal and then sprinkled with chili powder and other ingredients) from the stand in front of the guest house. Absolutely delicious. One of the girls running the stand told me that they were Yi people and so their chili ingredients were different than what the Chinese chuan stands use. I think the secret was Sichuan pepper, which I absolutely love. It's got a unique flavor, and it leaves your mouth somewhat numb. I cook with it a lot.

While I was waiting for my second round of lotus root, a family walked by and their little girl of 8 wanted to practice her English. We talked for a while, so the family sat down to have something to eat during her "lesson." They were really
nice and invited me to share their chuan and a few beers, which of course I could not refuse. They were from Guizhou, the next province to the east and had been travelling Yunnan for about a week. I understood them fairly well, especially the mom, at least for the first hour or so, until the beer started to impair my listening ability. The father really admired Western ideas and English in general even though he could only speak a few words (cheers being the main one). He didn't have an English name, and when I told him he looked like an Allan, he seemed exceptionally pleased. After the rigorous Chinese lesson and the beer, I climbed the stairs and slept like a baby.

The next day I set out for the mountains. There is a chairlift to the 2600 meter level and I'd planned to take it, but after trying to buy a ticket and enduring a few rounds of typical negotiation (90 yuan, round trip ticket only; ok, 60 yuan, round trip ticket only; ok 30 yuan one way ticket, blahblahblah), I figured screw it, I can walk. The "trail" isn't really marked, and I'm not actually sure I was on it, but it's not hard to find a way up through the forest. I just followed my nose and stuck to the horse trail. It was steep and slippery in places, but very pretty and a good workout. Over time, the horses have caused pretty serious erosion, and as I climbed, I thought that if it rained the trail would become a raging river in minutes.

After about an hour, it started raining. Softly at first, and then it really started coming down. I hiked as fast as I could, and even though I had my umbrella, I got pretty wet, especially my shoes. After another 40 minutes of hiking in the rain, I reached the rather secluded guesthouse on the side of the mountain. Of course I was drenched, but unfortunately, so was virtually everything in my pack. I figured I would dry out in front of the heat source, whatever it was, no problem. Problem: no heat source. They have a wood stove in the dining area, but apparently they save it for the winter. The rooms have no heat at any time. Of course this is the rainy season and summer, but still. It was pretty musty and cold in the room, and I spent the first afternoon trying to figure out a way to get dry in the continuing rain. I ate the spiciest thing on the menu for dinner and piled on the blankets to get warm enough to sleep.

The next morning was misty but beautiful, and I hiked north to the end of the trail. No worries about getting my feet wet at least. The scenery on the mountain range was absolutely spectacular. The trail winds in and out of steep green mountain valleys covered in pine and broadleaf forest. Each valley ends in a long full thundering waterfall. There are so many different greens: ferns, mosses, liverworts, and herbacious plants and vines, most of which I'd never seen before. And hundreds of different species of fungus. There were also many birds with unique and beautiful calls, but the bird book I have doesn't have the greatest pictures, so I had a hard time making any positive IDs. When the clouds parted, I could see Erhai Lake to the east, a huge lake that runs the length of the mountain range. It's hard to describe how amazingly beautiful it is in those mountains, and it's not just because I've been nature-deprived for 6 months.





The trail is also amazing. It's about 16 kilometers long and virtually flat. It's
completely paved with marble (mined from the mountains) and I think granite in an artistic design. There is even a railing at the steepest drops. I'm not sure when it was built, but there was clearly a lot of care taken in it's construction. It looks like something I'd expect to see in Switzerland. It's obviously maintained too, because there was almost no trash.


After a lunch of spicy soup, I hiked up a different trail toward one of the peaks. I had no intention of actually climbing to the top (9 hour round trip, very cold at the top) but the trail was so beautiful I just wanted to keep going. This particular trail is very little used, so it's overgrown to the point that it's almost invisible. It reminded me a lot of my botanical survey days when I'd just hike through the forest following deer trails or nothing at all. Besides bird calls, there was no sound at all. It was so still and pristine, like being in another world. I had to turn back because it was getting late, but it's definitely someplace to return to.

After another cold damp night, I hiked south along the trail to the other end. There were many beautiful waterfalls and rocky outcroppings, and hardly any tourists until later in the afternoon. There wasn't much rain either so the views of the lake below were spectacular. After 6 hours of hiking, friction was starting to dry out my shoes but I was relieved to get back to the inn before getting serious blisters. I had a lively dinner conversation with some young travellers from England, Ireland and Spain. It's so interesting to see how other Westerner's perspectives on China.

The next day I did some more hiking before heading down the mountain and back to Dali to wait for the night train to Kunming. I met a traveller from Guangdong province and we walked around the town for a few hours and chatted. Since they speak Cantonese in that province, his Mandarin was hard for me to understand (I'm sure he would say the same for mine), and so was his English, but we got by. He also had no English name, so I named him Wade. It seemed to fit.


On the hour bus ride to the train station, I talked to Lisa, a 5 year old girl from
Beijing. Her English pronunciation was great. Kids are so good at listen-and-repeat. Her grandparents were delighted to have her speak to a native English speaker for an hour and she was such a cute kid. Chinese kids are always cute.

The train ride back was 9 hours and although I usually sleep really good on the
train, I had a hard time this time, partially because the windows were open and the fumes from the engine filled the compartment so it was kind of hard to breathe. That's one of the drawbacks to living in China: sometimes it's hard to breathe.

The Cangshan range is a great place, but if you go, dress warm and stay dry.
Otherwise, I discovered that if you have two dry layers, you can wear a wet layer between them when you sleep and the wet layer will be almost dry when you wake up. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about wet shoes.

Nothing much

What have I been up to since the eclipse? I saw a bit more of Kunming, some of the old Muslim quarter that is quickly being torn down to make way for more slick buildings that lack character. People go about their business up until the night before the building is demolished and then move off to wherever.

Demolition activities:

Knitting...

napping...

and hauling bricks:



I joined a gym. The altitude here was making me feel out of shape and unmotivated, and there really isn’t a convenient place to run in my neighborhood, except a track that’s not too far away, but it’s a track. Flat. Boring. At least on the treadmill you can adjust the incline. The gym is quite nice, very spacious, decent equipment, not at all crowded at the hour I go. It would be great if they had water or toilet paper, but of course, other than 5 star hotels, no place in China provides such amenities.

I started teaching English a few hours a week. I know, I swore I wouldn’t do that, and I’m not really sure why I agreed. It’s only 3 hours a week, and even though the pay is not great, it covers all of my expenses. I’m teaching at the school that I will be going to for Chinese. They have English classes for Chinese university students on summer break. It’s funny because one of the stipulations on a student visa is not working for money. The school made sure to inform me about that, and then turned right around and hired me the next week. But everyone does this. Native speakers are in great demand. Although these students have studied English for 10 years or more, they have had very little practice with native speakers, and they are mostly unintelligible. Unfortunately, the students in the class are from vastly different levels and they have different goals, so it makes it a little tricky.

I went to Xi Shan, the closest "mountain" for hiking. It's about 8500 feet, so not a mountain really, but very pretty. There is a interesting grotto at the top built in the late 1700s , basically carved into the side of the mountain peak.


Supposedly these carvings were done by workers suspended by ropes. How they did this without power tools is beyond me. I can only guess how many people must have died.

From the top, there is a great view of Kunming and Lake Dian to the south. The lake is huge, but sadly a bright lime green from all the algal growth. It's seriously polluted, but not by Chinese standards. Here, green is much preferred to black and oily. Black, oily and steaming is even worse.




I went to the wild animal park about an hour north of town. Typically, I hate zoos. It makes me so sad to see the animals in cages, even if the cages are big. It seems so demeaning, especially for the primates, but for all of them really. When I look into their eyes, they seem no different than me (well, hairier) and yet they are treated like prisoners. They often look very depressed, very stressed. I worry about their psychological well-being, even if they look healthy and well-fed. I want to personally apologize to each animal for their unfair imprisonment by my species.　It's a real downer.
But when Melinda, one of the Hungarian girls that was staying in our extra bedroom (long story), asked me to go, for some reason I agreed. We barely squeezed onto the #10 bus heading north. I leaned against the front window and I was sure not another person could fit on, but no, about 50 more people got on before the driver started saying no. Since it was a Sunday and the #10 is the only bus to the park, it was full of people taking their little children to see the animals. After about an hour and a half, the road turned to dirt, and shortly thereafter, we came to the last stop and the final trek to the entrance.

The park is really big. It was at least 6 miles to the far end and we decided to walk instead of taking the tram since it was still overcast and not hot. It felt really refreshing to get out of the city, into the green mountains with lots of big trees and plants, very natural in appearance, but there were definite elements of the typical distressing zoo experience. Primates trapped in cages and enclosures large and small, some looking so depressed I just wanted to cry. People throwing food past the “Do not feed the animals” signs, or worse, throwing sticks or bottles at the animals trying to get their attention. At least the animals looked well-fed, unlike what I saw at the Chongqing zoo on my previous trip to China. There were even some monkeys that were free, running around and flying through the trees and generally looking like they were having a blast.
There weren’t many birds, but they did have several species of Hornbill, including several spectacular Great Hornbills that I’d never seen before and which can be found in the south of this province. Of course there were the requisite pandas, a very lonely and beautiful Golden Monkey (on the verge of extinction), a number of different species of tigers and lions, and many other animals. A couple of the lions were actually in the mood and were not at all shy about it. It was quite amazing to see the lion's mating ritual. Unbelievably fast, but she seemed to enjoy herself ;-).

Besides that, I'm just settling in to the rhythms of life here, nothing exciting. Still working on the picture thing.

Solar Eclipse

Today was the much-anticipated full solar eclipse. At this latitude, we only saw a partial eclipse, about 85%, and it was overcast, so it wasn’t terribly exciting. Unfortunately, just at the critical moment, I pressed some wrong combination of buttons and I could no longer access the viewfinder so I was shooting randomly out the window and only managed to get one decent picture (someday I am going to have to figure out how to use that camera). But it's better than nothing, since I don't think I will be around for the next one...

Fee collection...er, Health Exam

One of the requirements for residency here in Kunming is a health exam. I went to get mine today. As I suspected, the main purpose is to collect the fee, something less than $50. The test includes a number of faux procedures. In no particular order, they give you an ultrasound of the main internal organs, an EKG, a chest x-ray, blood test, urine test, vision and sense of smell exam and a blood pressure reading. These tests are of course all performed by different individuals in different rooms on different floors. Some of these folks really could not be bothered to even grunt instructions in Chinese. I just sort of wandered around and figured it out, trying to get all the spots on the paper stamped.

The ultrasound was the first test. I came in as the last person was exiting, and the sticky gel that the tech used on her was all over the cot when I laid down. Nice.

Next was an EKG that took about 3 minutes. They need to fully expose the chest so the sensors can be attached. The woman ahead of me was still lying there, fully exposed, as I was ushered into the room. Just one big happy family.

The x-ray tech was busy reading his newspaper and made some vague hand gestures at me. I went into the room with the x-ray machine and stood on the foot marks on the machine. No lead apron of course, but I'm pretty confident there was no x-ray taking place. The sound that x-ray machines make, especially machines as old as this one, was not made, and no lights flashed. Easy to pass that test.

Then there was the urine specimen (no sterility or privacy involved whatsoever), and the draw of 4 vials of blood. It was a new needle, but why do they need all that blood? I need that blood...

Next was the blood pressure test. As a part of this test, I was required to stamp my feet on the floor a few times??? I could not understand the woman, but apparently the foot stamping is pretty basic part of this procedure because she seemed very exasperated when I didn't catch on.

On to the hearing, vision and sense of smell test. I stood in the hall for awhile, and when a cluster of Chinese examinees started to form behind me, the tech was finally persuaded to put her little pink cell phone back in it's little pink case and do her little pink job. I had to identify a pattern of colored dots as an elephant, smell a clear liquid in a jar (alcohol) and cover my right eye (the good eye of course) for a primitive eye test. The fact that I heard her instructions automatically counted for the hearing test.

Finally I was finished and I have to go back in 3 days to get the results. Then I can proceed with the final 5 steps in the residence permit process.

The most interesting thing I saw was on the bus trip out to the facility. There was a guy with a donkey cart and two dogs clipping along the main highway. One of his dogs was standing on top of the donkey , balanced on the center of his back and bouncing along in traffic. He looked like he was really having fun. Of course I didn't have my camera.

Kunming

It's been a long time since I've been able to post. Google Blogspot is still blocked in China, but I found a proxy site I can use. It's slow and glitchy， I can't see the comments and I don't think I can post pictures, so it's not a long term solution. But for now it will have to suffice since I haven't been able to find a non-blocked blog host.

Since I last posted, I finished school in Jinan and moved across China to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the southwest, bordering Vietnam and Myanmar (no, I didn't feel the earthquake yesterday). I'll be continuing my Mandarin studies at another school here for at least another semester. I decided not to return to Seattle. Maybe someday to visit.

I'm sharing a 3-bedroom apartment with a woman from Australia. It's a palace compared to the dorm in Jinan, although not without it's problems. It's fairly large and my half of the rent is $80 a month. It's in an older neighborhood, comfortable, green, and hopefully not on the verge of being bulldozed, although the nearest open market is coming down next week. Kunming, like every other city in China, is rapidly being rebuilt. There is a good Wikipedia write-up on Kunming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming).

Hopefully I will be able to use this workaround to post regularly, and maybe even upload pictures. If not, maybe I can use Flickr, although it's currently blocked...