End of the Burma Road
Sunday Dec 1-3 2002
Arrived at Kunming from Guilin after 23 hours on the train. We had gained considerable elevation throughout the night. We took a taxi to the Camellia Hotel where we booked a triple room. Driving through the city�s nice clean wide streets in the cool fresh air at high elevation, we were reminded of Denver Colorado.
Jana went to the Kunming Museum. She was given some pictures and documents by a former co-worker that his father had saved from thetime that he worked as an engineer on the Burma Road…the road ended at Kunming and Jana thought there might be a depository of artifacts in the museum. This was the famous 1000km dirt road that was carved out of the mountains from Lashio Burma to Kunming in 1937-38 during WWII with virtually no equipment. It would provide the US forces, in a bid to keep China from falling to Japan, a way of getting supplies into China. Today, Renmin Xilu marks the end of the road in Kunming.
Jana was invited to an inner office to talk to the curator who was very pleased with the addition to the museum collection and of course Jana was extremely pleased that her mission was successful!
At a nearby Pizzeria/used book/cafe for dinner and I found �Behind The Wall,� a travel book about China in the 80�s by the British author Colin Thubron.
Wednesday Dec 4
We feel we have yet to experience local Chinese peasant life…the large cities of Guangshau, Guilin and Kunming are very western cities full of commerce and big upscale hotels and restaurants….all close to the business centers of Hong Kong. We are anxious to get into the countryside. We have seen very few Western tourists-certainly no Americans-but there are many Chinese tourists.
Tags: China, Hotels,Hostels & Guesthouses, Kunming, Reading, Restaurants, Trains, Yunnan
Zoe