How Did I Get Here?

Gateway to the new

Thurs-Friday (24-25 May 2007)

The smutty “guesthouse” (frankly, it would make a crack den look stylish) where I crashed for my first night in Kunming, overlooked one of the busiest roads. Strangely, the traffic outside was like a murmuring stream compared to the beastly roar that I’m used to in Hanoi. I soon discovered why. Everybody drives electric bikes, pollution and noise-free. Why haven’t they introduced this in Vietnam??

Kunming is the provincial capital of Yunnan and is a modern, bustling metropolis. Towering billboards advertising everything from Luis Vuitton to lubricant decorate the steel and glass shopping malls. On ground level it’s more hum-drum: dumpling stalls emerge from clouds of steam, Yunnan Muslims with colorful scarves grill lamb kebabs, squatting men concentrate on a game of Chinese chess.

I walked into a bookshop where all the books were in Chinese but curiously the cover titles were translated into English. Most of the books were self-help written by financial gurus. I couldn’t help smiling at some of the titles: “How to be a perfect staff”, “The company is your ship”. With books like these, no wonder China is a booming economic hive fed by corporate drones.

It started raining, so I had to dive into a shopping mall. Every shop was a luxury label boutique adorned by immaculately preened shop assistants, standing at attention outside. As I walked past in my bedraggled cargo pants and day pack, they rambled off a long Mandarin greeting, delivered in complete unison. Scuttling from shop to shop I triggered off a reverberating chorus throughout the open-plan mall. Very unnerving… Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve built up quite a reputation for being able to sleep everywhere and through anything. I fell asleep during my first tatoo, I slept through the cinema screening of The Excorcist, and even nodded off at the back of a 2-stroke Russian motorbike while doing off-road biking in N.Vietnam.
But I’ve met my nemesis: The Hanoi to Lao Cai night train. My cabin was tucked away at the end of the train, far from the section reserved for western tourists or affluent Vietnamese. When I stumbled into the cabin, 3 other vietnamese men had already settled in, one of whom was sprawled out on my (reserved) bunkbed,smoking. He sheepishly offered me one his Vinataba cigarettes before clambering onto his own bed. Lights were off quite soon after departing, and that’s when the sonic onslaught hit full force. Read the rest of this entry »