Kunming

Our route to warmer Kunming in Yunnan province took us on a snowy journey through Liping, Kaili, Duyang (we went here by accident) and on to the provincial capital Guiyang where we caught the overnight train to Kunming. At all the stops along the way people stared at us more than usual - it's definitely not tourist territory around here. If you smile and say "Ni Hao" to small children here there more likely to burst into tears than do anything else.

We travelled along brand new toll roads for most of the journey - new road engineering has produced roads perched high up on huge concrete bridges hundreds of metres in the air. These new roads rise high above hilly terrain and where they can't they use tunnels to go through. From the bus we spotted a couple of "new cities".... cities where hundreds of thousands of apartments have been constructed. For the moment these cities lie completely empty. No doubt part of a huge government relocation project in the near future.

We spent a week in Kunming doing two things... looking around the plethora of sports and outdoor shops around the city and internet catchup. After spending hours and hours in an internet cafe uploading pictures and getting the blog up to date we finally have a clean slate and conscience.

Currently we are in Jinghong in the south of Yunnan province... This weekend we'll be heading towards more sun - in Laos.