Wednesday April 13th

This morning we got up and had a very nice breakfast, and as we had a free morning, we thought we would go out to see the Sun and Moon pagodas in the daylight before heading on to the Seven Star Park, named because of the seven karsts within it.

We hadn’t gone far – not even to the pagodas in fact, when a local guy on a moped came up to us from the side of the pavement and commented on Mathew’s t-shirt (which said “na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Batman!”).  We continued walking and he stayed with us, talking to us and telling us he liked practicing his “Chinglish” as he described it, by talking to English speaking tourists.  He told us he had a tea house and asked us if we would like to go and have some tea with him.  We were a little dubious about this – as you would do with anyone you had never met before.  We decided to go along with it, as we figured out we could run away at any time..!

Mathew and Jerry

Ass we walked and talked, we told him we were part of a tour group visiting China, and he told us that his name was Jerry and he was an Art teacher.  It was at this point where we started to relax as the more he told us about himself, the more honest he seemed.  He parked his moped and we walked by his tea house called “Osmanthus Tea House”.  He told us it was closed because his wife was busy having breakfast!  So he took us to the riverside to see the Sun and Moon pagodas in the lake, although we thought they looked better last night when they were illuminated.

We then walked through the town square, where on the slabbed floor, there was an abstract map of the World.  We showed him where we were going to and where we had already been, before moving on to the UK where we told him where Leicester was, along with the borders of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were.

We went back in the direction of the Osmanthus Tea House, where his sister-in-law had arrived just outside, and proceeded to open the shop.  He helped her move a large table outside onto the street which had several round cakes of different tea on it.  He invited us in to sit on some small, but comfortable low wooden stools surrounding a carved wooden table which had several teapots and tea cups on it which I presumed were ornamental.

Monkeys!

Jerry’s sister-in-law started boiling some water to make Osmanthus tea.  The shop itself was tiny, but crammed with small teapots, mugs, cups, more flat round cakes of tea, small bags of tea, and some very large glass jars full of tea leaves.  Jerry told us, as the tea was being made, that the first cup is never drank  - it was only in the water for a few seconds and it was poured out over a carved wooden frog on the table, and after she made a second cupful, she poured it into a small teapot and poured it out for us in tiny glass cups on small wooden saucers.  We loved Osmanthus tea!  It was sweet, but not too sweet – just right.  Very nice indeed.

We continued to drink some Jasmine tea, then Lychee tea and we ended up buying a large tin of Osmanthus and Mathew bought a small tin of Lychee, inside which Jerry put a hibiscus flower bud inside – one of those which flowers in hot water which we had seen in Longjing.  He sold them to us for a lower price than he calculated too.

Camel Hill (Seven Stars Park)

After drinking more tea, he took us back to the riverside so we could go to the bridge to the park.  On the way, we passed an art gallery in which his art was exhibited, and that of his professor.  Yes, we bought some artwork too, they were smallish pieces which we bought at around £10 each.

We went back to the hotel to freshen up, and out to Seven Stars Park which was very green and although a very humid day, a very nice park to walk around in.  We even managed to find a good spot where the wild monkeys lived!  It was great to see them in a natural habitat and not penned in by any fences or wires.

Reed Flute Caves

In the meantime, I was feeling a little ill, perhaps dehydrated.  I seemed to have developed Mathew’s cold and I was feeling exhausted, and the humidity certainly wasn’t helping.  After walking a little longer, we went back to the hotel to finally sort out our luggage and check out of the hotel.  We went straight to another hotel to have lunch and then we went on to the Reed Flute Caves, which had some spectacular stalactites, stalagmites and columns lit up with multi coloured neon lights.  It was lovely and cool in there, and I started to feel much better after having had some food and a cooler, less humid environment!  We spent a good amount of time there too, a little over an hour I think, it was such a huge place and we walked around fairly slowly, although it was a little crowded.

After the caves, we went straight to the hotel where we were going to have dinner, but as it was too early to eat, we were given just over an hour of spare time to walk around the lake just beside it, which seemed more like a park, full of flowers, trees, and funky rocky steps here and there.  Many Chinese people running around the lake side passed by and said hello in English, except one lady who showed her appreciation to us by saying “Hallelujah!”.  Um.....praise the lord..??

Reed Flute Caves

After dinner, we headed straight to the airport where our luggage had already been checked in.  We went through relatively quickly and through security with no problems.  A couple of other people had forgotten Jane’s advice about the previous flight regarding NO fluids in the carry on luggage, and some shampoo, hairspray and some rice wine were taken off them and discarded.

We had about an hour’s wait in the departure lounge for our flight to Kunming, and my cold seemed to develop from a sniffle to a full on head cold.  I’d only had this two weeks ago back home!  I guess that’s what a sudden change in climate can do.  Eventually we boarded the plane for our 9:30pm flight, and I spent the time writing in my journal about the day.  The in flight entertainment was the same as last time, although it only lasted for 1 hours and 20 minutes.

Park at the restaurant

We arrived in a temperate Kunming at 11:00pm, arrived at the hotel 45 minutes later, and with a heavy cold, head and tired body, went straight to bed.