This is part two of my series Christmas in China.
Like Chita in Russia, I didn’t have any expectations of Kunming and ended up having a great time because I met friendly people by chance.
With Christmas Day and Boxing Day spent in Chengdu, I left for Kunming on the 27th. I left the hostel at 5am. My train wasn’t due to leave until 8am and I usually wouldn’t stress so much about getting to the train station early but China’s intercity train stations are different. They’re more like airports than train station, with baggage scanners and passport checks. They usually have a waiting area on a concourse above the platforms and check-in gates where you wait until you’re allowed through the ticket turnstiles onto the platform. The whole vibe is similar to Birmingham New Street but a bit more dystopian and yet a bit less unpleasant.
I pulled into the sleepy city of Kunming around lunch time, the province of China that borders Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Tibet. As you can imagine it has a diverse past. Kunming shows its history here and there amidst the modern Chinese cityscape with monuments such as the two ancient pagodas and ancient city gates. The streets also had some run down old houses that remind me of old films from Hong Kong.
The thing I initially liked about Kunming was the street food. There were potatoes, pancakes, tofu and various other delights. I spent my afternoon wandering the streets sampling various treats until I was ready to burst!
By the time I was done eating it was dark and so I headed to a nightmarket. I browsed for a while and admired the period costumes the teenagers were wearing as they drank tea and took photos. With nothing better to do, I stopped at a market-stall serving as a bar for a beer and instantly a group of students struck up a conversation. They were livestreaming their evening on some Chinese website. Comments and questions were scrolling fast on their device, it seems like they had a lot of viewers. They invited me to join them in their drinking games and answering questions for their viewers. We chatted, played games and drank until the nightmarket closed and I headed back to the hostel.
Returning to the hostel I spoke to the landlady who I thought had a strange accent when she spoke English. It turned out she had spent a year living in Redruth!
I stayed just one night in Kunming (although I pass through again on the way home) before catching a train westward to Dali.
Eastward Ho! 