Albrecht has never been to Mainland China before, so he was very excited.
I have and I like it, but I feel that I need to go a lot more and need to learn the language.
The third one in our little boy’s tour group, Greame who is a colleague of mine and Albrecht’s English teacher, has been there quite a lot, he even lived there for numerous years in different parts, and yet he is from Australia, he speaks and reads Putonghua –or mandarin- nearly like a home grown Chinese person. And this fact can make a visit to China so much more prosperous.
Us three boys started our Yunnan tour in the Capitol, Kunming
That this trip was to be Yunnan was kind of my fault because I have always wanted to go to Kunming.
Why?
Sorry but I really cannot tell why.
In fact I do not know for sure why, maybe it had some romantic reason, that I thought that in the rural south west of China, I could find some of those mental pictures which is hidden somewhere deep in side my mind, like the images I saw for me as a child when my mother told me about China for the first time.
Maybe it has to do with Tea., as Yunnan is one of the major producers of Tea in China, and always when we go to our local Tea Shop, all the best Tea Cakes comes from Yunnan.
Anyway I do not know why, but the opportunity came this year as we have young Albrecht living with us. He has never been to China and Catriona wanted to go home to Scotland to visit family, so I decided that I would take Albrecht on his first China mainland experience, and in that case, one place is as good as another, right?
So I kind of made the decision:
“Hey Albrecht, at the Easter break we’re going to Yunnan”.
“Where is that?”
“In China!”
“Is it close to Beijing, I would like to go to Beijing?”
At this point I had to play it a little bit tactical, as I’ve been to Beijing –it was nice, certainly- but I didn’t want to go there again, not this time, I wanted to go to Yunnan because I’ve never been there.
So the tactical manoeuvres started.
“Beijing is nice, but it is not like the real China, it is the capital and therefore a lot different, more like big and international and not so, hmm, Chinese, I guess.”
I could see on Albrecht’s expression that the tactics had done the trick.
“But I would really like to go to Beijing!”
“I guess that you will get the opportunity at a later time.
Yunnan is in the southwest part of china with borders to Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar to the south and Tibet and the majestic Himalaya Mountains due west.
The Capitol, Kunming, was an important location for airline traffic in the early years and especially after World War 2, when civilian aviation was growing and more and more far east destinations became reachable for flights from the old world. After the jump over the mighty Himalayas the planes needed a rest, or more correct, to be refuelled for the next leg of the journey, and this was in Kunming. “The Hump” it was called back then and this expression is still to be fund in various places and descriptions in and about Kunming, and it is the name of a very nice and friendly youth hostel in the centre of the city.
Though we didn’t stay at this Hostel, it became a sort of base for us, the time we stayed in Kunming. Not because we could meet other travellers or eat western inspired food there, no, it was because of a formidable rooftop terrace with the most stunning view to the city centre.
That they also did serve a pretty good coffee and wasn’t fussy about you hanging around for a couple of hours on the rooftop, either to relax or just killing time waiting for train- or airline departure, makes The Hump a place to visit, should it happen that some of you readers plan a visit to Kunming.
Next time a bit about city feeling in Kunming and th beginning of our trip further west towards the cities Dali and Lijiang, and you can meet this fellar and a couple more like him.
