Kickin' It In Kunming

Didn’t do a whole lot in Kunming. These lazy days seem to be more frequent lately, which is a bit of a shame considering we don’t have an infinite visas. But our time in Kunming was ultimately consisted of tying up a few loose ends and getting some planning done.

Our first day there (Friday), we turned on the lap top just to check the messages and touch base with home, only to be slapped in the face by the dreaded blue screen, which was followed by some odd beeps and clicks. For anyone who or has ever owned a computer, you’ve probably experienced this trauma before. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, these are signs of a dying hard drive. Now, my original intension upon coming to China was to buy a portable hard drive to store photos on, but Darren figured that would fit well enough on my computer so we opted to put it off until/unless it looked like the files were taking up too much space. I have been uploading a portion of the photos onto Picassa, so we did have some form of backup, but not a complete backup. That all being said, when I saw that blue screen my first and foremost concerns were for my photos. I made Darren take me to an electronic market immediately so I could buy a hard drive, and than stressfully wait to see if I could transfer the important things before it blue screened again (the important things of course being photos, music, and Photoshop). After a day and a half of frantically trying to back up photos and figuring out what our repair options were, we eventually figured out that the lap top was still under warranty; and, with the help and translation of the hostel reception, we were able to drop it off at an Asus repair shop. They put it in a new hard drive and transferred all our data free of charge—all that stressing for nothing! (Keep in mind that before leaving for China, I dropped my very large hard drive twice, in a matter of minutes, and it is the only source for all my photos, and have not repaired it yet; so, already scarred from my previous technical misfortunes, this was the second time my photographic life was the flash before my eyes.)
Technical difficulties aside, the only other thing we did in Kunming was walk around the city, buy a novel or two, and go to the Stone Forest.
I only watched BBC’s “Wild China” once, but it definitely left some strong impressions of China—and of the Stone Forest. I was particularly excited to see the Stone Forest, and while it is impressive, I was also a little disappointed. (Since coming to China, we have also learned/come to realize that in order for BBC to film “Wild China”, they first had to sign an agreement with the Chinese government, restricting what they were and were not allowed to document/show.) The parts of China that BBC doesn’t show are the tourists and ticket booths that are around every corner. The Stone Forest in the “Wild China” documentary is portrayed as a “wild” and petrified forest. It is petrified, but hardly wild, and it was also smaller than I expected. It is actually a small park, which was once wild, but has been exploited for a profit like every other natural beauty in this country. That being said, it was still pretty cool. The original forest was created some 200+ million years ago when the ocean receded from the area, leaving a large forest of limestone karsts. With the proceeding years of wind and rain, many of the karsts have been warped and moulded, leaving some smooth, some jagged, and most in strange and unusual shapes. Some of the rocks have even taken the shape of things such as elephants, birds, or a cat. It definitely adds a whole new level to that childhood past-time of finding shapes in clouds. I think one of the coolest things about the Stone Forest, despite the mowed grass and highly manicured walkways and rest areas, are the swallows that inhabit the trees and massive lime-stones. At least we think they’re swallows. I don’t think we actually saw any of the birds (something did swoosh by once, but so quickly we barely caught a glimpse), which makes the experience a little eerie but exciting at the same time. As you enter the forest, there is this overwhelmingly loud, buzzing-like noise that seems to be coming from everywhere. We couldn’t figure it out at first, but we realized that it must be birds. An area will be totally quiet, and the minute you step over the invisible threshold, it just explodes with rapid chirping. The quiet forest just suddenly comes alive with this chaotic noise, enough to rival the masses of Chinese tourists. Once you do escape the hoards, the forest can become fairly quiet and very peaceful. I’m not sure if it was the air quality/lack of oxygen or just the fatigue from travelling in general, but we were both exhausted and short of breath (it’s entirely likely we’re just out of shape), and just about fell asleep at this wonderful little spot called something to do with a swords tip or peak of a sword or something. We overheard one of the tour guides talking and I think it was supposed to be a holy place, and there we were lying on the rocks half asleep!

We spent one last day in Kunming (at the Hump hostel—not our favourite) and were off to Dali.