thank you china east!

catching a flight to kunming was my best idea as of yet. the whole process went by so well, everything was organised, clean and efficient. there was no spitting, no smoking, and we even left early. in 1h and 40 minutes, i did what would have taken 53 hours by train. really insane! the best $110 i've spent so far.

kunming's visit will have been short and sweet. i am leaving tomorrow for dali, a smaller walled city north-east of here (towards tibet, i guess). today i visited a mountain with temples, some of which were cared directly into the mountain side. it was really nice, probably one of the best things so far. but there was a lot of steps! well over 3km worth of non-stop stairs. a great leg workout i guess!

kunming is pretty cold, surprisingly. when we landed last night is was 15C. that's just insane! today was nice in a t-shirt but a little cool when i wasn't moving, and i walked around all day with a scarf. i think dali will be warmer though...

i have tried finding an internet cafe but it seems that half of the city has been internet deprived for over a month now. so the hotel here can get away charging Y12 an hour... that's expensive for china. and hotmail doesn't work! everytime i try to send an email thne message gets errased. frustrating!

anyhow, i'm off for a cheap hour long foot massage. then, some food. then, some sleep! ha!

by the way, the camelia hotel/youth hostel is really nice but the beds are rock hard. i think, harder than the hard sleepers in the trains. who would have thought!