Kunming

We spent several days in Kunming, and left this afternoon. It's a beautiful place, and reminiscent of Austin - very laid back. Our hotel was on the campus of Yunnan University, and there was a street across from the hotel that reminded me of 6th street - chic clothes shops, bars, and restaurants. I found an Italian restaurant with fast wireless, so I was able upload photos, but I never got around to posting.
We saw lots of temples in Kunming - Taoist, Buddhist, and Muslim (which we didn't end up touring). The Taoist one was in a park-like setting on the edge of town. There were lots of tourists, as usual. I really liked the Buddhist Temple in town. No tourists except us, and a really peaceful place, which I needed. The stress of having people around all the time is starting to get to me. I spent the last evening at the Italian place sitting by myself eating margherita pizza and surfing the web. And then 5 of our group showed up; so much for solitude.
We also went to the Stone Forest. This is an area of weird karst formations, formed when old limestone seafloor was uplifted and eroded. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn't get to go wandering around among the huge pillars of rock. I have never seen anything like it, except for some areas in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas.
Dianchi Lake is another tourist spot in Kunming. This beautiful place is incredibly polluted by industrial waste, mostly mining activities. Around the far shore of the lake are many industries which used the lake as their dumping ground. The government is trying to clean it up, but it will take many years.
Yunnan Province is home to 26 different ethnic groups, so there is a lot of diversity in town. I am always surprised by how different each area of China has been. I'm not sure why, since not every place in the US is the same - certainly New York City looks much different than Jackson, Mississippi.
We are now in Lijiang, and our plans have been disrupted by mudslides and road construction on the road to Lugu Lake, so we're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. Today we're visiting a glacier, so I've got to go borrow some long pants.
be safe,
rem
Stone Forest


Temples


The Lake