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I’m now in Yunnan Province, in the southwest corner of China. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas of the country and the most popular with Chinese tourists. My train made it to Kunming after 11.00 in the morning. I was trying to decide whether to meet a friend in a nearby town or to stay here. I took almost an hour trying to figure out where bus #64 was located. In the mean time my friend said he preferred I visit today, so I turned around and got a train ticket to Qujing.

After 1.5 hour train ride, I met him at the train station along with another art student I met in Beijing. I was taken to his home, which was huge by Chinese standards. Six bedrooms and they had seven beds total. My friend, his two parents, and his grandmother live there.

They took me out to see the city a bit and then returned for dinner. We walked past a black, polluted river near his home and I took a photo of it. One local lady got a little upset about me showing this kind of thing to people in America.

For dinner there was a hotpot which plenty of food. Along with the two art students, another friend was invited because she never met a foreigner before. After dinner we had some Pu-er tea that is only used on special occasions since it is the best tea in the house and has been aged at least 20 years.

This is another famous tourist city. I only had a half day to see it all, so I got moving. I took a bus to the Li River. Then I walked across the bridge to Seven Stars Park. My first stop inside was the Seven Stars Cave. They rushed me through the entrance so I could catch up with a tour already in progress. The cave is filled with colored lights placed in order to make the rocks look like animals or other imaginary things. It actually looked pretty impressive inside the cave. Then I climbed one of the seven peaks in the park for a view of the area. Then climbed down and saw a temple, and small zoo, Camel Hill, and another cave.

Then I walked all the way back to my hostel, stopping at a few places on the way. I had an overnight train to Kunming to catch. My new computer battery really paid off now, with battery times around 5 hours compared to 1.5 hours with the old one. The 18 hour 20 minute ride had some very scenic sights. First it was the mountains like I saw in the last two cities. Then in the morning there were “stone forests” everywhere.

I woke up with the sound rain pouring onto the roof of the hostel. The whole day wasn’t too bad though. I went out a little later in the day, the rain stopped, and the sky was clearer. I was able to get a better look at the mountains surrounding the town and to see the fog hovering around the peaks, just like Chinese landscape paintings.

After checking out of my hostel, I walked down West Street, which is like the main pedestrian street in town. I walked to the bus station to get a bus to Guilin. I saw one driving off and the conductor got me on that bus just before it left. There were no seats left, but she sat me down on a bench next to the door. It wasn’t too safe with no seatbelt and the windshield directly in front of me, but I got a good view. The hour long ride to Guilin gave me an opportunity to see how large of an area is covered by this famous scenery.

The bus pulled up to the final stop and I saw a sign to the hostel I wanted right in front of me, which was convenient. I spent the after buying my next train ticket, finding an ATM, and trying Guilin Noodles (Mi Fen).

It was dark and raining a bit when the bus dropped me off in the early morning. I had some ideas for places to stay, but for some reason I listened so some English speaking guy who said he will take me to a hostel. He said go in this taxi. Usually in this situation if they take you to a specific place of their choosing, it is a free ride. I assumed this, but when I arrived I was overcharged for the 3 minute taxi ride. You can have a bed for the night for the same price! Anyway, the hostel he mentioned was closed, so he directed me to another place which was not the hostel. I knew these people already ripped me off so I didn’t want anymore business with them so I said no to this room and took off on my own.

After wandering around the streets getting lost for a while, the same English speaking guy found me again and tried getting me in another taxi to another place. I said I don’t trust him, I’ll just walk. I asked some other taxi drivers how to get to where I wanted to go, and I got some hints and I did figure out where to go combining all my maps and compass and hint of direction (of course no one will give you proper directions, they want money, it is like SE Asia here).

I made it to Flowers International Youth Hostel and such a better place than the first one I saw. They speak English here, have a nice lobby, nice room, free Wi-Fi, and free breakfast. The breakfast is actually served to you (eggs, toast, tea, orange juice) which is a first in a hostel! Under $6 per night for a private room.

The guidebooks say the best way to see the area is to rent a bicycle, which I did. Everyone else was doing the same thing, so it was nice to see so many bicycles around. It was my first time riding a bike in China too. I think it is more difficult than other places due to the variety of things on the street, and this is just a smaller city. In a few second period, I saw two people carrying a motor cycle engine across the street and a guy with only underwear on walking down the street (no shoes or anything).

I spent the next few hours riding past the scenic mountains, rivers, farms, villages. This area is pretty famous in China and it was a good experience to ride a bicycle through it. Although in the afternoon it started raining. A light sprinkle mostly, so I decided to turn around and get back to town. Some of the roads were dirt and there was a lot of mud so my clothes were getting dirty too. It still was worth it though and I made it to many places before the rain.

Today was mostly waiting around for the nighttime sleeper bus. I also visited Chen Chan Academy in the city. An American girl in the hostel gave me her scarf and gloves since she is going south and I’m going north. About $17 for a 10 hour bus ride to my next destination and I left at 7:30 in the evening.

I woke up early and made a side trip to a city called Shaoguan in northern Guangdong Province. I took the cheap train there in the morning, which was kind of crowded and uncomfortable. Once there I took a bus to Hanhua Temple, which is a little famous for the mummy of the 6th Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Hui Neng. The body was in a sitting posture behind glass and looked almost like a sculpture. Actually I was the only westerner I saw there since the place isn’t in my guidebook.

On the way back, I had to wait in a quite long line at the train station for a ticket. The train was a little higher class for the return trip. Some Chinese guys talked to me, one in English. Here in south China I’ve noticed a lot of Chinese people trying to make friends with me, I think because I’m not in the main tourist areas of the country right now.

I went sightseeing around the city. First I visited Nanyue Royal Tomb Museum, and then entered Yuexiu Park and then saw the Guangzhou City Art Museum inside. In the museum there was a model of the city which included some crazy towers and skyscrapers that were twice as high as the surrounding buildings. I learned one of them is under construction, and then there was a pair of towers even higher I have heard nothing about.

After a huge bowl of noodles (hard to believe how much you get for $1 here sometimes), I went to Liurong Temple, Guangxiao Temple, and Temple of the Five Immortals. I walked through some of the old area of town, which was picturesque.

I left my hostel in Shenzhen and headed to the train station by subway. It took me a while to find the main entrance and ticket office of the train station due to poor signs. I ended up walking along the entire rear of the station. When I did find the proper area, I found things were very efficient. It took just a minute to get my $10 ticket and then I went through an automated gate to the waiting area. Just a short wait because trains left every 20 minutes or so. I got to try one of the brand new high-speed “D” trains. They had a information display in each car and the train got up to 200km/h. I read even higher speed train lines are being built in the Pearl River Delta.

Then I took the subway to the hostel. Pretty nice subway system here too. I’m at a hostel that overlooks the Pearl River. It is a good location. For dinner I had some la mien, hand pulled noodles.

I’ve been told this is the #1 city in China for crime. So I need to watch out a little more and not sure I want to bring my camera out everywhere.

I was planning on leaving the city today, but after seeing a hint of the electronics market yesterday I knew I’d have to stay another day. My friend said it is possibly the largest market in Asia. Since most of those factories are in southern China and most gets exported through Hong Kong, I think it is possible. Xbox hacker Bunnie has more to say about this market.

I entered the main building, 10 floors of vendors and small shops. The upper floors had a lot of computer accessories. The lower floors had mostly small electronics parts. There was probably about 100 tiny businesses on each floor, so about 1000 for the entire building. And there is not just one building, but many up and down the street. Across the street there were some brand new buildings, six floors each and they looked like they opened up last week and vendors are beginning to move in. Endless shops selling cables, chips, connectors, cases, computers, and everything else made in China.

There was one thing I was looking for: a new battery for my laptop computer. One year of heavy use has taken its toll on the battery. Even though there are so many shops, it is hard to find one thing in particular since there is just too much there! I brought my battery along and tried my luck with some shops selling Dell computers, but they don’t have batteries. One shop was able to find someone with an official Dell battery, but it was kind of expensive. I wanted the aftermarket one. One shop ended up finding the battery I was looking for and I got the eBay price (without the shipping) of $50. I’d have to say it is easier to buy on eBay over trying to find something in the endless rows of shops.

Another note about the battery. I was trying to find out how old it was, and I was looking at the sticker on there. It said 2008-03-11, which was today! I have no idea where the battery came from because I didn’t find a shop with those things piled high myself. But they must mark that date when it leaves this market in this city. So I must be close to the source!

I think I finally found the mysterious origin of all those cheap parts on eBay that say they are shipped from Hong Kong. People in Hong Kong must come here and buy here which is as close to a factory as you can get, then they can sell them overseas from Hong Kong.

I met a friend that I originally met in Beijing. This is his hometown and he is here during his school break. Today was a good chance to try Guangdong or Cantonese food. For lunch we went to a big Dim Sum restaurant and I got to try about 10 dishes or so. This included some gelatin made out of turtles, whole pigeons, and chicken feet. Most of the food here was sweet flavored, so it was really good.

After lunch we walked around some of the shopping areas of the city. I wanted to look at some phones and asked about second hand phones. He suggested going to the biggest market for electronics in the city. I ended up buying a used Nokia 6610 (maybe 3 or 4 years old) and the guy put a new battery in it for me (battery date says 2007-12-30). It was $37 for this unlocked phone that can input and output both English and Chinese. Then I realized my SIM card was also lost when my wallet was stolen, so I had to get a new one. For $12 I got a China Mobile SIM card. It includes 160 free text messages per month (receiving is free) and after that is is 1 or 2 cents per message to anywhere in China. I’ll probably use the voice more for emergencies, since the number I got here in south China will be long distance to anyone I call.

After shopping, I had dinner with my friend and his family. So we had a lot more Guangdong food. I was so full today! I got to visit his family’s home a bit too.