I just got back from my vacation in Yunnan Province this morning, and I’ve already got pictures online. Here they are. I’m the blond one, and the others are a few friends of mine. We spent a couple weeks wandering around Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, and Xixuanbanna. It was a much needed break from the freezing cold of our industrial cities. I loved seeing all the different cultures and all the wonderful food, especially the huge variety of local pickles in Xixuanbanna. I can’t wait to travel more!
Those pics are excellent! It looks like you guys had a blast. I want to go stay in the treehouse! And eat noodles. But no monkeys, they smell bad and scream alot.
What was your favorite place?
How did these taste?
Great pictures - thanks for sharing!
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO jealous.
And great pics! I spent a month in Yunnan in roughly the same places as you - Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, but I then went on north to Zhongdian, not south to Xishuanbanna), but in 1995. I haven’t been back since, though I was in Sichuan in 2005.
Coincidentally I was looking at my pics of that last night.
What a difference in the towns and cities compared to your pics. Unrecognisable. When I was in Kunming, every time the lights went red, there were about 100 bicycles, 5 mopeds, and a couple of horses. Seems to have changed a bit now…
I was also there at the opening of Kunming’s first burger bar. It was hilarious to see people with no freakin’ idea how to eat the things. And lots of plastic gloves handed out so they didn’t have to touch the burgers with their hands.
But I’m glad to see they have Park ‘n’ Shop, my favourite absolute misnomer, as none of them have parking lots.
Southern Yunnan looks amazing - so Thai/Burmese. ::Makes note on travel wish list::
Thanks for sharing them!
The highlight was our last day in the Yao village of Yaoqu, a place we kind of randomly went to. We had no idea how to get out of town, and were making quite a spectacle of ourselves walking down the main drag trying to get useful information out of the ancient women and crazy men following us around. Suddenly a woman in a perfect purple suit (a standout in a village where camoflage and pink fez hats is the standard fashion statement) walked up and said in perfect English “The bus leaves at 12:30. If you like, you can wait in my family’s home.” She introduced herself as Sally, the village English teacher. She also introduced us to a shy, beautiful girl, Angel. Angel was her star student and the one who clued her in to our presence.
At first I figured she must hate teaching in a place so remote. But when I asked her how she liked it, she said she loved her life there, near her family and with her culture. Her students were learning well (Angel’s English was better than some of my college student’s) and she was very content to help them. It dawned on me that she was like my students- many of whom will return to their villages to teach. Gave me a moment of perspective about what I am doing her myself.
Sally gave us a little tour of the village. Everyone was in traditional clothes- even the toddlers wore little embroidered hats with coins on them. Since her family wasn’t home. we went to Angel’s home. It was a traditional wooden Yao home, with a large open kitchen/storage space on the bottom floor and sleeping areas up top. We ate on the dirt floor with the light filtering through the cracks in the board (until someone ran to the store and bought a lightbulb.) Angel’s family served us tea from an old school round compressed cake and cooked us fried pork tendon, slabs of pork skin, and a wonderful sour vegetable. They even taught us a bit about cooking over an open fire.
After breakfast, we were waiting around outside a bit, when we spotted Angel on the upstairs balcony with a mischeivious grin. She came down with piles of brightly colored folded fabric. The traditional clothes of the Yao people. The did our best to stuff our American bodies into the clothes. Neighborhood people got in on it, bringing out their colored tassels and silver jewelry for us. The old women hung back in the shadows laughing, wearing the exact same clothes we were so inexpertly wearing.
As we descended down to catch our bus, Angel told me in very good English about her life- she wants to be a nurse, she knows how to drive a motorcycle, and her family are all farmers. She then told me I was the nicest person she had ever met.
I don’t know if I will get back to Xishaunbanna again, but if I do, I know I have friends in Yaoqu. Their generosity, warmth, and excitement made it the best part of my trip. If I’ve learned one thing in travel, it’s that there are good people in every distant corner of the world, and sometimes it seems like the more distant the corner, the gooder the people.
Wow great pictures. I love Sally’s daughter’s jacket with the yellow smurfs and the little ears on the hood.
The pictures are all very low res to me, all grainy. Should I change some settings?
Wow, I totally don’t remember there being many (any?) clubs in Dali or Lijiang. Just a bunch of backpacker haunts selling, uh, herbal tea.
Oh, I like it!
My darling and I have been thinking of making a trip to Southern China this year, and you just threw some more coal to the fire.
Wow, that looks like a kick! I was with you right up to the hearty meal of pork fat and blood. You are waaay tuffer than me. I could even get around the warm beer but not that.
Say hi to Brad for me next time you see him.
ETA: Donald and Jason, too.
Really cool pictures! I want to be your friend. 
The most “adventurous” place I’ve gone is Taiwan… not terribly exciting at all.
Where is Yaoqu? In Xishuangbanna? My wife has relatives in Jinghong (half sent down in the cultural revolution, half local Han.
Yaoqu about a forty minute ride north of Mengla (but not on the main road), in Xishuangbanna very near the Laos border. Some scrap of a guidebook we glanced at in a tourist cafe suggested that there was a nice youth hostel there. I’m guessing this guidebook was from a very very different era than the one we are living in, because everyone just looked confused when we stepped in to town and it was quite a hunt for them to track down the guy who ran the town hotel.
Jinghong is probably my favorite city I’ve been to in China (though my experience is pretty limited…) It had great food, good weather and a really laid back atmosphere, though it seems like it’s changing pretty quickly with some massive development. Still, I wish I could have stayed there instead of coming back to the freezing. There is no way I’m staying up here after my service is over, but I’d take a job there in a minute.
Sven, your photos are great and make me want to go back to China. We only made it to 3 cities in as many weeks and felt like we could have spent 3 months exploring. Thanks for sharing them!