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Kunming, China

We’ve mostly been resting since we arrived in China. Physically I feel much better, mostly recovered from my recent problems. Kunming is in Yunnan province in southern China and is known as the City of Eternal Spring for its nice climate. It is literal spring right now though, the trees are blossoming.

Our AirBnb is near Green Lake Park which is a nice park and lake in the center of the city. Although there are over 5 million people in Kunming, it doesn’t seem very crowded, especially compared to the last few places we’ve been, the density must be lower.

Nice to be able to walk around without a face mask for pollution.

People dancing in the park, enjoying life.

Yanmei has been to Kunming before. That’s why it is funny that she is now experiencing some culture shocks in her native country. For example we went to eat at a hotpot restaurant and she couldn’t figure out how the ordering system worked or what the prices were. Speaking of restaurants, one of the bad things about this region is many people here smoke, and they do it in restaurants. My tolerance for smoke is way down and I find it very off putting.

We had an amusing coincidence yesterday. While browsing a tea shop, Yanmei found out the shopkeeper’s name is also Yanmei Li.

The two Yanmei Lis.

David

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生于忧患死于安乐 – trip from India to Nepal to Kunming

March 11, 2018, Sunday, Rain in Kathmandu

”生于忧患，死于安乐” is a saying in China. It means if you feel very safe and easy, you are going to die or fail; if you are alert to potential risks and difficulties, you can survive.

Today, we are going to fly to Kunming, China from Kathmandu, Nepal. Looking back at the 4 days we lived there, a lot disappointments. I underestimated the difficulties, hygiene problem, and pollution of this country. It was ten years ago, a friend told me how nice it was. Actually, the dust pollution is even worse than Delhi, India. The food and and water has potential risks too. David got a few times of diarrhea yesterday. He also got headache. I searched on line about Typhoid. His symptoms meets the most: headache, constipation, sore throat, diarrhea, feeling of nausea. OMG, if he got Typhoid, he might die. I asked him to see the doctor a few times, he refused me every time. 15,000 people died of Typhoid in 2015 in India. [David: I was vaccinated for Typhoid before this trip] He might have got it in India. I am also at risk too. I should be careful, washing hands is very important.

Luckily, David felt okay this morning after having some Chinese Medicine for cold and western medicine for diarrhea. His western habits can cause him troubles here.  He assumes everything (glasses, spoons, forks) is clean, whereas I assume it is dirty and wipe it off.  He also eats with his fingers, like toast or naan, which is dangerous because even if you wash your hands it is easy to touch something dirty.  I got some phlegm in my throat this morning, so I had the Chinese herbs right away.

“You survive if you predict the potential problems and risks, you die if you underestimate them”.  We did prepare well for our trip in India. David got a lot information from his Indian coworker. We chose the best season to travel and we lived in an expensive hotel. We only drank bottled water and even used it when we brushed our teeth. Therefore, we successfully prevented the risks and problems.

While at the airport, I searched the temperature of Kunming. It is chilly, only 17 degrees, I reminded David to wear his jacket. Suddenly, we heard thunder and saw pouring rain outside of the waiting room. David asked, “it is thundering and lightning, why are people still boarding? If it is in the US, the flight will be delayed”. “I hope I will not die on the way to China.” I was scared but I teased him. Then we boarded in the rain.

I suddenly thought about writing a will for my son, handwriting is better, because it counts even without witness. Who knows what will happen today or tomorrow. Just last month, my friend Lea almost died on the flight to Hawaii. One of the engines had a problem 1 hour before arriving to Honolulu. As they were on the Pacific Ocean, they could not land. The flight was shaking for whole hour and might get fire when landing. She told me the story on WeChat and my tears came out. Luckily, my friend survived. She does not fly as frequently as me…

I missed my son yesterday and texted him twice. He replied to me this morning. I got up with my back pain. David said that missing him gives me tension, and that tension always manifests there. This is an important year for him, the second year of high school. He must have a lot stress and taking many exams. Should I stay and support him in Beijing? I do not know. It seems he does not need me. Every time I ask him about taking care of him in Beijing, he refuses me. I do not know if it is what he really thinks.

The flight attendant asked me to turn off electronic devices now. So I have to stop writing. Hope our trip in Kunming will be uneventful…

Yanmei

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Nepal

As Yanmei mentioned the first thing we noticed about Kathmandu was the dust. Although the AQI of Kathmandu is slightly better than Delhi, it feels worse on the street because of the dust. The first night we walked around a bit and the headlights were forming beams through the dust like spotlights through fog.

Nepal suffered a devastating 7.8 earthquake in 2015, and the effects are still very visible with piles of rubble here and there and many damaged buildings. Unfortunately many of their UNESCO heritage sites are damaged too. We walked to Kathmandu Durbar square, which is a heritage site. They wanted to charge us 1000 rupees to enter but we could see it just looked like fenced off piles of rubble, which is too bad. I get that they are trying to raise money to rebuild, but we decided to pass.

A damaged temple held together with braces. This doesn’t look safe if there is another quake.

On the bright side the people here seem friendly and honest. They also don’t pester you like they do some of the other countries we’ve visited. Another interesting thing about Nepal is one of very few places to have a 45 minute time zone offset. So for example 7:00am in San Francisco is 8:45pm here, 13:45 difference.

Anyway as mentioned in the previous post I booked a Himalayan flight tour. I figure if I’m in Nepal I should take the chance to see Mount Everest. You can trek to Everest Base Camp, which I’m sure would be spectacular, but it is a 6-7 day trek. You can also fly in a helicopter to EBC, but that is very expensive. Also something like 35 people have died at EBC alone in the last five years (not including people who died while climbing the summit), so it’s not exactly a safe location. I figured the best alternative was to take an airplane fly by. Yanmei decided to pass.

I had to get up at 5am for the flight since mornings are the most likely to have clear weather. This wasn’t great considering I’m still battling a cold.

The airplane. It had 3 seats per row, but they only sold 2 so everyone had a window.

We took off, and to be honest it was pretty disappointing. Maybe it is the nagging cold or I’m too jaded, but I just didn’t feel the majesty I was expecting. Maybe the perspective from a plane at cruising altitude shrinks the mountains. This is what it looked like:

That’s not Everest by the way. The flight attendant would come along and point out various mountains as we passed them. Then at one point she suggested I switch to a seat on the other side of the plane. I didn’t really get it since there wasn’t much to see, then the guy asked for his seat back, so I moved again and couldn’t see anything so after a minute I moved back to my original seat. The flight attendant came by and pointed out another mountain. I asked “what about Everest?”, she said “you didn’t see Everest? We passed it already.” She points out every lesser peak, but doesn’t bother to mention when we are at Everest? I missed it. W. T. F. This put me in an extremely foul mood. We landed safely and I got back to the hotel by about 8:45am, in time to have breakfast with Yanmei who wisely skipped the flight and slept in.

I feel like this is a sign that it’s time to go home. If I can’t get excited or enjoy the Himalayas then I’m getting exhausted of travel.

That was yesterday. Today when thinking about this post I flipped through my photos and I found one that looked familiar. After comparing to google images of Everest I found it matches. So apparently I did see it and snapped a shot, but I just didn’t know it was Everest at the time.

Everest on the left and Lhotse (4th highest mountain) on the right. Now I feel a little better about it, but I’m still feeling burned out on traveling.

David