My first views of Beijing. It was 102F that day!
That cucmber dish is amazing, pork, pumpkin, noodles, tea and BEER.
This is a typical street outside the Forbidden City. It is pretty clean by Chinese standards with very few street vendors.
Much of the Forbidden City is under restoration for the upcoming 2008 Olympics. It was about 100F this day too!
Monument to the People's Heros!
This is near the entrance to Summer Palace. It was built long ago for the Emporor to escape the heat of Beijing in the summers. It is amazingly beautiful, with more trees, water and bamboo that anything else nearby and the air is noticeably cleaner and cooler here.
Tree lined paths in the Summer Palace, in Beijing.
These were my tour guides! Louisa is in blue, she was a friend of Kris Sherwood, and her friend, Dily, is in the foreground.
Views from the train on the way to Xinyang demonstrate the wokring conditions of some of China's laborers.
Look out for bird flu in China!!
A sidestreet market in the afternoon is all but deserted as people snooze away the afternoon heat.
Arriving in Xinyang was a change. This is a “clean” street to some extent. People drive, ride walk and spit wherever they like. The sidewalks are greasy and dirty from coal soot. It is very hot.
At one of Kris' school where he taught.
One of our first experiences in Kunming were the great street markets there.
Kris decides to serened all of China as we walk from teh tea district to some other destination.
Kunming is a very modern, clean and moderately well functioning city. Notice the lack of smog. The temperatures were also normal here. Similar to Seattle in the summer.
Much of China moves on bikes. Not fancy carbon fiber, but heavy bulletproof steel!
The guy on the stool is a fixture in Kunming, he is homeless, disabled yet very friendly and happy!
The back of a taxi in Xinyang. In China, if you are white, everyone wants a picture of you or with you. There are also more cell phones there than almost anywhere I have been, which is funny given the lack of plumbing.
Some basic housing in Kunming, outside the tourist areas.
Almost and all services can be found along sidewalks and sidestreets in China. I am not sure what this woman's speciality was, but they seem quite capable of a number of tasks with minimal equipment.
This is the old Muslim district in Kunming that is being destroyed to make room for “modernization”.
Lee and her friend enjoying an ice cream after dinner.
Leaving Kunming for Dali.
Here is a “hard sleeper” birth on the train from Beijing to Xinyang. A hard sleeper consists of 6 bunks, three to a side, with a very firm foam mattress about 2 inches thick. They are quit comfortable.
Kris and I try out the dining car on our way to Kunming. The food was excellent, and the beer (pee jiao) was also good. This was “Dali” brand, brewed in Dali, where we end up in a few days.
The ONLY way to fly!
The rail leading away from Half Way.
A view of the Half Way Guest House from further down the trail.
Mr. Feng, excellent host and generous man in front of his guest house.
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These little coal pots keep you warm in the evening on the outdoor dining deck at the guest house. Place them under the stone table and the heat just rises up around your legs, very nice.
Kris is chillin with a book in our EXCELLENT room at the Half-Way Guest House. Only 50 Yuen a night (US $3 each!) Definitely the most comfortable beds on the trip too!
This fabulous beetle was found on a bush called “schway ma”, which means “water pepper”. It is not really a pepper at all, but a faintly sweet berry that is very refreshing. This beetle was about 2.5 inches long if you were measuring the body and head only. If you included the antennae it was nearly 4 inches! This was near Sean's guesthouse in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
