Kunimingus

After 26 hours on the train we get to Kunming and through the bustling train station out into a cab that takes us to our fucking wicked hostel called 'the hump' which refers to the massive mountain range between here and india. we meet a couple of guys called will and jules who were having a weekend off from the country nearby where they are teaching english. we get down to saome drinking games, jules teaches us the australin rules to ring of fire. a bit later we get joined by this guy called mickey who is american, learning maderin here, but he used to be a soldier posted in iraq and korea! we also get joined by this guy called michael who's half thai, half chinese (we presume michael isnt his real name but who cares. a fair few beers later and we're doing the hokey cokey, michael was LOVING it. then we decide to head to the bar and club, we went downstairs and will got everyone a shot of tequila, earlier on in the night teh gusy were telling me about the chinese rice spirit called baiju which is fucking butters, but fucking cheap. i run to the shop and a small bottle costs me 30p i down a bit share soem with jules and sneak the rest into the club. the club was the most packed out of all that we'd been to and i go over some people's table after eying up there popcorn and start pouring them baiju shots (whilst obviously muching their popcorn) then i want to dance see some girl, literally drop my baiju bottle on the ground, smashes, i go and dance and this girl is like come to our table. they start pouring some shots of what can only be described as fanta fruit twist and then the guy on the table starts playing my belly and going what's this so i grab is bicep and go whats this, feel mine he gets ashamed the girls start squeezing my bicep, next memory is waking up in .... my bed.

the next day we grab some brunch, at the hostel... ok let me describe the hostel, the common area is hugeit consists of a place with beanbags and floormats, tables and chairs, 4 computers pooltable and bar, and thats just the inside is a roof terrace which is 3 times as big as inside which is big in its own right and this has beanbags as well, more tables a ping pong table (on which i beat pierre 4-3 and 4-0 in matches of best out of 7 - that chinese guy taught me well) and a little bar table with stools that looks over kunming's central square. anyway back to the story, i was still drunk at this point, but after some food and a bit of fresh air, i just felt hungover. after reading teh guidebook we realised that there is nothing to do in kunming, really, during the daytime, we hit the museum which was closed, so we went to the market which was cool, cos they we're selling animals not intent for consumption -yay! after that we just returned to the hostel to cotch, which it is excellent for. that night we just chillaxed and watched the spurs play shit with some cool irish guy called matt who was having a rest after working a couple of months in shanghai. next day we went to probably the best buddhist temple we've been to in china in terms of its age and design, though i didnt feel the same religious experience that i had felt in hong kong. after that we went to the park and listened to some guy play accordian then we eventually went to the museum which had about 4 rooms, although it did have some interesting stuff like bronze age discoveries from early yunnan and a buddhist statue with some guy with 4 arms and faces standing up with his knob in a woman facing him, extra detail on the balls, pics will follow.

that night was st paddys and we had a jolly good knees up in the hump bar (different one) downstairs listening to dropkick murpheys and sweet molly malone. hit a club afterwards, pretty shit, very drunk. not good to have a hangover for a 5 hour bus ride to dali the next day.

One thing i have failed to mention is how nice kunming is. it is so warm at certain points hot and i think the moniker 'city of eternal spring' would be better suited with summer. the sky is blue, meaning no haze, and your lungs feel a lot better than they did in say, hong kong and guangzhou. we are back here tonight after going to dali for a few nights before getting another ridiculously long train journey to chengdu tomorrow night.