Thursday April 14th

This morning we had a nice breakfast in a ‘revolving restaurant’ although it wasn’t moving when we arrived there.  Getting to the restaurant was also quite unusual as our room was in “Building B” on floor 6.  To get to the breakfast room, we had to go down to the lobby, across to “Building A” (just across the lobby) to get the elevator to the top floor (floor 20), then get a second elevator to the next top floor (floor 3).  Then of course we had to remember the way back...!

On the coach, we discovered our local guide, Martin.  We had met him last night, but we hadn’t been properly introduced.  From last night, we already figured out that his English wasn’t quite as good as Jane’s, or any of the other previous local guides who had been brilliant.

Kungming countryside

 

We were on our way to the Stone Forest, which took us about 90 minutes to get to.  We didn’t spend a great deal of time in Kunming itself so we can’t really say much about the city, but the scenery on the coach was really nice, almost Mediterranean and reminded me a little of Tuscany.

En route to the Stone Forest, we discovered that our local guide, Martin was our worst local guide so far.  Basically he didn’t seem to be interested in his job – he spoke to us but it really was as if he was there just because he was being paid.  It didn’t impress us either when he repetitively belched and cleared his throat without realising the microphone was still next to his mouth.  He failed to maintain our attention and he was also VERY preoccupied with his phone and would always answer it WHILE he was talking to us.  Very unprofessional.

When we arrived at the Stone Forest, we had a little walk into the entrance and although Martin was ‘leading’ us through, he seemed to be dragging his heels and behaving as if he couldn’t be bothered – in fact, his entire body language said this.  On the way to the entrance we saw quite a few ladies who were dressed in their traditional outfits of the Sani people, a sub group of the Yi minority, which Martin pointed out to us.  They were local guides taking people around the Stone Forest, and the thing I couldn’t understand at this point was, that everyone in our group so far had asked for permission to take a photo of any local people, including children and their parents.  For some unknown reason, most people in our group just went up these Sani ladies and started clicking away.  Fortunately – and rightfully so – the ladies turned around, walked away or covered their faces as soon as they saw the camera so nobody ended up with a good photo of them.  The oddest thing was that nobody realised they hadn’t asked permission and everyone was complaining “They don’t like having their photos taken, do they?”

We finally entered the Stone Forest, and Martin began to take us around.  Given that we had been told we would have 90 minutes here and Martin’s very slow pace, Mathew and I thought we wouldn’t get to see a great deal at this rate, and we were both really looking forward to the Stone Forest and exploring it.  We got hold of Jane and asked her if we could go and explore by ourselves, and fortunately she said yes, and gave us a time of 12:45 to get back to the ticket office.  I think she may have had the same impression of Martin as we did, as she had spent quite a lot of time shouting at him so far...!

Stone Forest

So Mathew and I went off to explore, and we were really glad we did!  We managed to find a spot outside the area where the tourists were milling around, and we only ended up passing about 5 people during our time exploring.  It was really fun, and I was pleasantly surprised by the path being a really decent maintained one, with well kept steps which were sturdy and solid.  Here, limestone rocks had been eroded into crevasses where the paths took us up, down, and some areas were really narrow!  It felt a little like Bryce Canyon in the States being at the base of the hoodoos, we were at the base of all these naturally eroded stone columns and it was really quite otherworldly.  My favourite part was 5 or 6 very deep steps where on either side, some very useful handles had been purposefully carved into the rock so we could pull ourselves up – it felt like we were rock climbing for a couple of minutes!

Stone Forest

Eventually, we decided it was time to try and find a way out.  It was like a maze in there, and although there was a map on the back of the ticket and maps dotted around the area, they weren’t too accurate – we had discovered that these maps (for parks at least) were more of a suggestion as to where you MIGHT be...!  I got a little anxious for a moment, but we soon managed to find our way out to the main road around the park and we sat down at the ticket office where Jane said to meet the rest of the group.  We were there just a few minutes before 12:45 but the group returned to the ticket office at around 1:15, which must have been due to Martin’s slow pace.

Stone Forest

As we got back onto the bus, we went through a market where there were lots of tapestry-like rucksacks.  I hoped I would see some before we left Yunnan province, as I had decided that I wanted one, but we couldn’t stop here.

On the way back to the hotel, I admired the landscape again which this time, reminded me of the Peak District although it still seemed very Mediterranean and Tuscan as well, covered with a mixture of trees and crops, and there were many workers in the fields wearing conical hats.  Also on the journey back, Martin was talking and going on about a show which I thought was something he had seen and was just telling us about it.  Eventually he said “It will cost 220 Yuan” and I realised he had actually been talking about a show we could go to that evening, by which time I had no idea what it was all about, but as Jane really recommended it we thought we would go!  Martin’s talk about it obviously wasn’t very good or appealing to others because in the end, only 9 of 30 went, compared to the majority of the group having gone to the previous shows.

Stone Forest

Shortly before arriving back at the hotel, we stopped off at a village.  Martin had told us we would be stopping off at a village to admire the local embroidery, so I was expecting to see a bustling village with lots of market stalls, and I hoped to see one of those bags which I really wanted.

When we got off the bus, it looked more like a small town.  Not only that, but it looked deserted – shutters were down in most places, and it looked quite run down to be honest.  Martin took us through to a specific building, although at first it really seemed like the episode of the Apprentice when the London tours went pear shaped because they got lost and ended up taking the tourists through random run down back streets and alleyways...

Embroidery

But no, we went into a large building which turned out to be an embroidery “factory”, and the owner happily greeted us at the door.  On going inside, we discovered that this wasn’t the tapestry sort of embroidery  - this was hand sewn fine embroidery where employees painstakingly embroidered patterns into silk which had a picture printed faintly on the surface, and the rest of the work was up to them as they sewed fine silk threads into the pattern.  There were many finished pieces on display, and I kid you not – they looked like photographs, especially the ones with people in them.  It was extraordinary, and the prices of those on display were really quite cheap – I didn’t even want to think about how much money his 40 employees earned. 

Embroidery

There were also some large looms and rugs being made on the other side of the building.  Oh, and the reason for the town looking deserted?  No electricity today, therefore, few people had come to work today, and it turned out that this village experienced power cuts frequently, as I think many places in the countryside do.

Back on the bus and on to the hotel, we decided that we would definitely go to the show tonight called “Dynamic Yunnan” after dinner.  We couldn’t take photos of this one, as it was in a small theatre, and while the show was on, we even saw some people being thrown out after having been warned once already that they had been seen, with a green laser having been shone from security at the back, on people’s LCD screens on cameras and phones.

The show itself was a mixture of different tribes dancing with modern dance, lots of drums, lots of singing, and lots of dancing in all sorts of costumes from many of the minorities who live in Yunnan Province – a show definitely worth seeing!

We met Martin back in the lobby of the theatre, and we headed out to the bus.  Here is where he let us down even more – he had decided not to take Jane’s “Wendy Wu” flag so we couldn’t see him.  It was dark outside, and he led us down a different set of steps outside which were REALLY deep, in fact, any of us could have fallen down them and had a bad injury, but he wasn’t watching us at all because he had gone straight to the bus without even looking behind to checking we were ok and all following him.  We ended up looking out for each other and making sure we all managed to get down the stairs in one piece, as half the people who went to see the show were having difficulty.  By the time we were in the car park, Martin had disappeared and we had no idea where the bus was.  Fortunately, the bus hadn’t moved from having parked on arrival, and when we approached it, we found Martin looking for us in the opposite direction.  Only when we were on the bus did he bother to count the number of people here!

Well, at least the Stone Forest was fun, and the show was good – to be honest, we thought Martin should go and re-train or re-think his career....!