Hardcore Stones...literally.
Woke up really early again today at 6AM. Grabbed breakfast and the bus took off by 730AM. Everyday since Dali, the bus has had trouble starting up. The first day it happened, i thought we were gonna get stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But after about the 6th try the thing starts up. Oh well. Today we are heading to the Stone Forest. I am excited about this. I hope its really kool. We headed out and were on the road for another four hours. At our first pitstop, a bunch of the women went into the bathroom then a few seconds later I see them all running out covering their mouths and pluggin their noses. They then formed a line outside the bathroom while still keeping their mouths and noses closed. The kept playfully pushing and egging each other to go into the bathroom and use it. It was quite funny. The guys would walk into their side and just come out holding their breath. I told myself, I can hold it till the next stop. It was a memorable moment. Thats what you get for not having proper sewage and toilet systems.
Somewhere along the way we stopped at another Beijing Medicine shop for brainwashing. I didnt even bother going in. I just hung out by the bus and walked around looking at all the wreckage in the back of the building. Kevin was outside as well so i played with him a bit.
We headed out again and stopped for lunch at this highway sightseeing place outside of the local town. We entered the gate and the first thing I saw were these tibetan inspired buildings or orange and white then a little pagoda pavilion on the top of a cliff with a water fall spraying out below it. It was beautiful. I went, "ooooooooo". Chen said this place was called "Seven Color Painted Wall" for whatever reason I don't know. Very pretty. The lunch place was in a big dinner theatre type of hall. The place was packed. And it was a buffett. Crap. Nothing is worse than seeing chinese people at a buffett. Well, its not the worst thing, but its not a pretty site. The people just scramble for food. There is no order. This is where lines/deli tickets would be perfect. It goes back to the time honored tradition of communist conditioning and rationing out of food to starving people. I was finally able to get some food. I actually stood in line for about 5 minutes. I had to lower myself to their level...i felt dirty. I sat down with some of the group members. There was a performance starting on stage.
The modern chinese people have cultural confusion. The first act had a bunch of girls on stage in some traditional style of chinese outfit for the region, but they were doing a mix of chinese and hip hop dancing while wearing Cowboy hats. I just lowered my head and shook it. After they went off stage a Gourd Flute player came on and busted out some tunes. The mic on the flute was way too loud. Thankfully I finished my food quickly and bolted out of there. I went sightseeing around the place. Here are the fotos. After taking a bunch of fotos of the buildings and the bridge and the white stone memorial of Chinese Heros, I tried to get some decent fotos of that pavilion on top of the cliff. I asked how much it cost to enter the park. 20RMB. Koolio. here ya go.
I entered the park and found out right away that it was a peacock and chicken park and they got to roam free. Thats pretty cool. I walked all over the park snaggin fotos. I couldn't find the path to the pavilion so I walked up the super steep hill. The view from the pavillion was gorgeous. See the panorama. After the pavilion I walked down the opposite hill and talked to a little baby in the arms of her grandfather. I was walking down the hill not paying attention and I walked around a tree and there I stood 2 feet away from about 20 peacock females and chickens and roosters...whoops. I backed away and one peacock started to come after me. I jumped across the stream from a higher rock and the peacock jumped on the rock and jumped across as well. He extended his wings and floated to the ground. I am just gonna walk away. The thing kept following me to. I went over to a small temple and took a couple snapshots and then left.
After the park I walked over to look at some of the shops. I bought some Gelato that someone was selling. Kicking. Then Guo Sifu called me on my cell. He was asking when I would be back. I told him and he said thanks.
I headed to the bus and we were about to head out. I had noticed all day that Golf was not 100%. He threw up on the bus a couple times into a plastic bag and then just threw the bag out the window. It made me giggle in a kind hearted way. While the bus was stopped and we were waiting to leave, he dropped another bag out the window. So I kidded, "Um, you feeling ok Golf? You know there are trashcans." He cracked a smile. There was a trashcan not more than 10 feet from the bus. The bus headed out and we made our way to the Stone Forest.
Two hours later we got there. It was beautiful. The tour guide told us to stay with the group because it was very easy to get lost. I got scolded once for climbing some stairs to another area that she wouldn't take us too. Its not like I wouldn't be able to find you. Oh well. She is just doing her job. I was climbing on all the rocks to get good fotos. Check them out here. I don't know if the lady said not to climb on them or not, but I couldn't understand if she did. Besides, its not like I am gonna break them or make them dirty. Birds have already painted them white. There were some absolute spectacular views.
We also went into the Baiyun Cave that was there. The chinese really like to ligth things up. Houses, temples, trees, fireworks, cigarettes, and caves. They had every color imaginable down there lighting up the insdie of the cave. It was really neat. At one point they had a skeleton drawn on the wall with green flourescent paint so it would glow in the black light. Giggle. We then left the fave and walked around some more. We then headed back to the buses. There was a small horse that pulled a carraige for sightseeing. I petted the horse a bit, but then it got angry with me and NAHed at me. Ok, i am outtie. Then its cruel master approached me and tried to get me to take a ride. I pointed to the bus and said I couldn't. He smiled and seemed happy to talk to me. The place seemed dead, so I bet he was really bored.
We headed back to Kunming City. It took about 1.5 hours. We had dinner somewhere and then headed over to that Tea Shop inside the gorgeous shopping center I mentioned in the first journal entry of this trip. Boy was I uber-bored. It was another one of these Government Forced deals. I sat there really pooped. For some reason I wasn't in a good mood. I just felt that we were wasting our time with this junk when we could be seeing real stuff or spending more time at real stuff like more than 2 hours at the Lijiang Ancient city. We then headed back to the hotel we stayed the first nite at. I packed up all my junk and passed out on the bed.