So the other day I jumped onto the first "mystery" bus that came along to see where it led. It was the start of a lovely and lucky afternoon.
The destinations of a few of the dozen or so buses that stop outside my flat are still unknown to me. I can't read the Chinese characters on the bus route signs and, even when I can, I don't know where the places are in Kunming. There's nothing quite like a map, a notebook and sense of adventure! So the other day I jumped onto the first "mystery" bus that came along to see where it led. It was the start of a lovely and lucky afternoon. After about 45 minutes, the bus terminated outside the Kunming Botanical Gardens (somewhere now very much on my list of places to visit) and just down the road from Black Dragon Pool Park [see photo]. I've been there once before last year with Ava, for our first proper date! On the journey there, however, I'd noticed a small sign pointing to a Daoist Temple, 1km away. So on the way back I jumped off the bus and determined to try and find it... easier said than done, as it happened. The road suddenly ended when crossed by a dual carriageway, still under construction [see photo]. A few enquiries suggested the old road continued across the dual carriageway, so I headed on. The village at the end of the road smelled awful - sewers overflowing - and still no sign of the temple. A local lady spotted me looking here and there. She kindly offered to show me the way to the temple. I'm not sure I'd have found it otherwise, as it was down a series of small alleyways. But I could hear it due to the dozens of little bells there, tinkling in the breeze. The temple turned out to be well worth effort, though. The Daoist monks - both men and women - were decked out in traditional robes and were very friendly, insisting on giving me fruit and wanting to chat. There were only a couple of other (Chinese) visitors, and no tickets or guards (as most Chinese temples have these days).The temple walls have wonderful murals on, depicting ancient religious stories. They looked fresh without seeming too new or tacky. There was a fantastic 3D diorama on the back of one temple, featuring a host of deities riding a large tidal wave. And inside the various temple halls were some enormous statues (the monks asked me not to photograph them). It was one of the quietest, most interesting and friendly temples I've ever been to in China. What a lucky find! I'll certainly be back!
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Next week is China's annual "Tomb Sweeping Festival" where people return to their ancestor's graves to tidy them up and celebrate their lives. Jiajia will be in Shenzhen again next week, so today we took the opportunity to avoid the crowds and pay an early visit to her Gran's grave. The cemetery is about an hour's drive outside Kunming, though as we hit a series of tailbacks from various traffic accidents on the highway (one was a five car pile up), it took us longer. Jiajia was raised by her Grandmother, so it was particularly sad when she passed quite suddenly about 6 months ago. Jiajia still thinks and talks about her a lot and was naturally a little upset when visiting her grave. Her Gran was a strong believer in Buddhism, so Jiajia honoured her belief by finding her a spot in a Buddhist cemetery, overlooking an auspicious temple called "PanLongSi". After leaving flowers and cake, and burning incense and fake money we visited the small temple in the cemetery for a chat with the monk there. Ava said she also prayed for my dizziness to stop, which was a kind thought (I've had worse dizziness over the last week since starting to take the medicine designed to stop it!?). Despite black clouds, the rain held off (the government are said to be seeding clouds to try and overcome the current drought) and we drove back to busy and noisy Kunming having enjoyed the peacefulness and birdsong of the cemetery. Jianshui (pron: jen shway) is a small, well-preserved town about a 4 hour bus ride from Kunming. I last went there some 13 years ago, but only to visit teachers I was training at one of their schools. I also passed through the town about 2 years ago en route to the YuanYang Rice Terraces. I saw this gate (on a roundabout) then and decided to return and explore the old town sometime. So Jiajia and I headed there today. Jianshui's two claims to fame are it's "chaodofu" (smelly tofu) and the Confucius Temple (one of the largest in China). I'm not a big fan of the former, but the Temple was very impressive - large, active and very well-kept (if expensive, at 60RMB or £6 a ticket). It also helped to be there on a warm and sunny day. The highlight for me, though, was spotting this UFO hovering above the temple. It was a pinprick spot [see red circle] but, when I zoomed in on it with my camera, an odd and fascinating shape was revealed. Not very "aeroplane" or "balloon"! It stayed in the sky for some minutes, but when Jiajia and I glanced back after chatting about it, the object had completely disappeared. Very spooky. Despite forecasts of rain, today turned out to be dry and sunny, so Jiajia and I decided to drive out to Black Dragon Pool Park on the outskirts of Kunming. After parking the car we got a bit of a shock to see goats munching on moss on the roof of a nearby restaurant! [see photo]. The ever-reliable Lonely Planet guide is a bit negative about Black Dragon Pool Park, but we found plenty of interest - trees, temples and towers mostly. The pool itself has an interesting story attached to it. It's split into two parts by a pretty bridge, with the water on one side noticeably muddier than the water on the other side. Apparently this has been a mystery for centuries and the only time when the colours of the water swap over is just before an earthquake! This afternoon I taught Jiajia to play Monopoly (rather too well - she won) and then we had a delicious Muslim meal in the evening with mutual friends. All in all, a really nice day. I’m probably in Colombo a day longer than I need (or want) to be. It’s such a big city that to get anywhere means a crowded bus, super-slow train or exhausting walk (with persistent cries of "Taxi?" from every passing tuk-tuk). Still, I need to do a little shopping, and there are a variety of religious buildings to view – Muslim mosques, Hindu Devi temples [see photo], Buddhist shrines and Christian churches dating back to the British occupation of the island. I had a nice meal at a restaurant famous for being used in Duran Duran’s "Hungry like the wolf" video and later, having had my fill of cheap and cheerful curries, I took the chance to blow my budget on a tasty Pizza Hut meal. Sigiriya Palace is a day trip from Dambulla and a fascinating site. On arrival, I was somewhat take aback by the ticket price ($25) which is not only the amount of my daily budget on this trip for everything – hotel, food, tickets, travel, etc, but also, I think, more than I’ve paid for any tourist site, anywhere in the world. After that little shock though, the day itself was great fun and fascinating. The Palace is built on a steep hill which rises out of the surrounding plains like some sort of Sri Lankan "Ayers Rock". You approach it through what used to be water gardens, temple buildings carved from huge boulders and small caves. These are all ruins now, but it’s easy enough to imagine what it was once like. Then up a series of steps, viewing ancient, but extremely well-preserved, frescoes on the way. The halfway point is at the bottom of the photo. Climbing these next steps involves passing to half a dozen large hornet nests [middle left black dots in photo]. As I arrived, other tourists were rushing into a heavily netted shed, as there were rumours that the hornets were about to swarm. I waited a few minutes, but really quite fancied climbing the steps by myself, so set off before the cowering crowds re-emerged! Arriving unstung at the top of the rock I explored the remains of an enormous palace (or possibly temple – no one is quite sure) and enjoyed the great views. It was very windy but a nice way to cool off after the hot and tiring ascent. Then it was time to face the hornets again…! A few hours bus ride north from Kandy lies Dambulla. It’s main claim to fame is the Royal Rock Temple – five caves in the hillside overlooking the town which house various Buddhist statues. Worryingly the entrance at the bottom of the hill is dominated by a huge and very tacky "golden" (plastic?) Buddha statue, sitting atop an ugly, modern museum (containing little of an interest) paid for by donations from Japanese businessmen with, presumably, nothing better to spend their money on. I feared the worst, but after making my way up the hill this afternoon I was very impressed by the ancient caves, a couple of which are very big indeed, and subtley lit to make the statues look very lifelike. Today is my last day in Kandy – a lovely town. I visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth which apparently boasts one of Buddha’s molars. The purpose of the Perahera Festival, which finished yesterday, is actually to parade the tooth around town (not that you actually get a chance to see it on the parade or in the temple). The temple therefore turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, as half of it was closed to visitors because everything was being tidied and packed away for another year. Even the elephants were getting a good clean [see photo] and some extra vegetation to munch on. Tomorrow I head on to Dambulla I usually do my travelling with a Lonely Planet guidebook in hand and Sri Lanka is no exception. One of the things they do extremely well is to highlight possible walking routes away from the mainstream tourist attractions. So today I caught a local bus and headed off into the countryside to track down three temples and walk the 10km of pathways between them. I do enjoy days like this – clean air, little cost, friendly people to bump into (though crucially no other foreigners!) and an element of challenge as I endeavour to find the temples without getting too lost or sunburnt! One of the motifs I spotted in all the temples was this "7 animals in one" monster [see photo] which apparently boasts the tail of a peacock, the body of a fish, the mouth of a crocodile, the nose of an elephant, the legs of a lion, the eyes of an eagle and the ears of a monkey! It’s not often a 500 year old piece of art makes me chuckle! The sky this morning looked like it could chuck down rain or turn really hot and sunny. Thankfully the sun prevailed, so Jiajia picked me up from the hospital (my health is still OK) and drove us to GuanDu - a quaint, old pedestrianised town on the outskirts of Kunming. Despite heavy traffic and getting a bit lost, we made it safely. Once parked, we checked out the multi-armed statues in the temples and spotted this cute toad hiding in the mouth of a stone dragon. A wild dancer with her personal band gave up a laugh with her bouncing around and audience involvement [see photos]. After lunch, we headed for DianChi Lake and a nice cool-breezy embankment walk I'd not been to before. An obligatory ice-cream and I was dropped off at home, sunburnt but happy! This time of year sees Kunming as something of a hub for people heading off for holiday travels. So, despite another two weeks of work ahead for me, it's fun to catch up with friends old and new as they pass through. Today I met up with Tina [left], her anagram Nita [centre] and Gale [right]. Tina is a VSO teacher and Gale is her colleague from Simao Teacher's College. Neither had spent much time in Kunming before, so Nita and I took them for lunch and then showed them around Green Lake [see photo] and YuanTong Temple. While I had coffee with an ex-Lattitude volunteer who was also in town, the girls had a quick wash and a repack at my flat. Nita headed home while Tina and Gale set off in a taxi to their overnight train to Chengdu. Tomorrow, Cindy and Gladys are in town for lunch, and Mark arrives in the afternoon to stay a few nights! As I said, sometimes it's all go! |
AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
February 2024
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