Travel One: Trains Through China

The highlight of the last week would be the train ridefrom Guanzhou, which is i guess the closest city to Hong Kong in China, to Kunming, which was five hours by bus from Dali. The 26 hourtrain ride was almost exclusively through beautiful and strangeChinese landscapes.

One man I spoke with for a while told me in broken English about stoneforests that i should see here. Stone Forests... Sure... I assumed hewas very confused in his English and just kind of nodded. Then wepassed a stone forest. As i said, strange landscapes. Much of thearea was once underwater so you have unusual rock formations - Indeed,and in red earth none the less.
I stayed in a room with six beds. Two rows stacked three beds high.It was sleep away camp with Chinese people through Chinese mountains. My roommates were on the bottom a 60 year old Chinese couple who werealways smiling and singing together and to the music that was oftenblasting from speakers. The man reminded me of papa. I'm on thesecond row up next to a guy my age who, I exchanged very blank stareswith - as if to just say, "huh you look pretty different than me". Heoffered me a cigarette which i refused and i offered him a cookie thathe refused. Finally there was the 30 year old mother, her 16 monthold kid, and i guess her sister. Wow, they were a beautiful andlovely family.

Chinese look at that their kids with a kind of awe and curiositythat's really cute and very different than the Japanese approach - butthey also set real limits and on some level are just really goodparents to young kids. None of them spoke English but we all gotalong. At about hour 14 i practiced Chinese pronunciations with theolder man. I was making them laugh and also laughing cause the soundsi was making and repeating over and over were so strange. NeeeHaaauuu means hello. It feels like some horribly inappropriateimitation of Chinese people that they are encouraging me to make --so funny.

People seemed much more into Obama on the train then in Hong Kong. InHong Kong people were happy but ultimately very unsure. On the trainpeople were just pretty happy. The people on the train were not richbut not really poor. They had little black Berry's and the two peoplei met were just traveling - they looked kind of poor, but weretraveling for upwards of two months. And they also commented on thehard life of the farming communities we were passing. They were alsoproud that the government subsidizes the farmers and university. Theyseem to like there government on some pretty key issues - thatimpression will be left very open for now.
Dali is the old capital of Yunnan province. Its unusual in china tohave old buildings because they basically build over everything. Itsthe most diverse area in China with people from all over China, Tibet,Burma. People are very nice, there are beautiful things in brightcolors. Its also a popular backpacker site which has its advantagesand draw backs. The drawbacks are the UK kid who works for JP Morganwho I found very irritating. On the other side its easy to find Internet, cheap hostel, information in English, and I found somepretty interesting Chinese people who work for a Chinese edition ofNational Geographic. They explained to me that China makes its ownversion called Geographic that's mostly just about China.

I'm in contact with an English teaching school nearby in a verybeautiful place. They seem really nice and pretty interested in mewhich is really nice. I need to find away to scan my passport andsend it to them.