From the Mind of Trevor Stone

The microscopic demons of Xishugangbanna invaded the gastralaowai systems and sat around in the lower bowel regions muttering things about the small bumps and numerous turns of the Yunnan Expressway First Grade Freeway. The road is something akin to driving from Golden to Glenwood Springs and then immediately driving back. Except with ten times as many tunnels. And with a sign that instructs "Elephant Passage Don't Blow." And toll booths at each city. We spent an hour going from the tool booth at the entrance of one city to the toll booth at the exit of that city. Unfortunately, the driver was in the blowing lane the whole way. But The Unmatchable Match was on the bus's VCD player. I knew it would be a good movie when it opened with a tow truck dropping a flaming police van off a cliff.

The next day we spent three hours in an Indian restaurant drinking sprite, chai, and banana lassi and eating vegetable curry and tandoori chicken in small increments whilst assessing our digestive abilities. We then walked thee stores up and spent 45 minutes listening to The Cranberries in a fruit drink shop before buying some fruit and big bowls of ramen for the next stage of our journey.

Two friends with a soft sleeper room to themselves is the most enjoyable way to travel, not just in China, but in the world. We cooked ramen, played boggle by hand, watched lovely karst scenery slip by, and slept better than the previous night's hostel while covering the distance from Kunming to Guilin in an evening, a night, and a morning, all 355 Yuan each (that is, transportation and lodging for less than US $50). I wish American rail travel was this good.

Today we met a guy who, in good English, complimented me on my beard. We proceeded to learn that he owns a tea shop, so we sampled the osmanthus (a local speciality), molihua (he claimed Guangxi produces the best in the nation) and oolong with ginseng. For the second time we spent too much on tea, but for the second time it was to nice people. He then lead us to the cheap (relative) place to buy river ticket cruises and helped translate the situation. I'm glad to get some kilometerage out of my fuzz face.

Have a happy Valentine's day and buy a red tassel for your sweetie.

nuts to the shift key, the keyboard in this guesthouse doesn't like me.

i met mollybzz before noon in Kowloon five days after the full moon. Swoon, I'm in china! we wandered around hong kong, eating tasty morsels like curry beef donut, Macanese dishes, and fresh fruits from roadside stands (supervised by cats).

i hear there's a big blizzard all over china. we discovered the impact of this when we arrived at the shenzhen and then guangzhou train stations. thousands of chinese waiting patiently for canceled trains. fortunately for affluent tourists like us, China southern airways has a ticket office open 24 hours a day a few blocks from the southeast corner of the trainstation in guangzhou. 850 yuan and a night's sleep later and we were on a plane to kunming, capital of yunan province.

kunming lacked the chaos, cold rain, and general getmeoutahere feeling of canton. instead, it had a colorful market selling sweets and crucified ducks, across-the-bridge noodles, and pleasant busrides through streets towering with sky scrapers and trendy shops. we climbed Xi Shan to the south of town, purchasing boiled eggs and radishes held like ice cream cones sold by peasants with cute kids along the side of the trail. We had dinner full of delectible vegetable morsels we didn't recognize in a restaurant the size of a garage, tucked away on the hill. We then paid too much for taxi rides on the principle that they knew where this Dragon Gate was. Carved into the hillside are caves housing statues of Taoist deities. we then walked down through the miniature stone forest.

i've been fighting a cold the last two days, but that didn't stop me from wandering through old Dali today. It's the right mix of "preserve the quaint" and authentic locals selling wares. we bought chops (stones to stamp one's chinese characters with), countless tasty morsels for two kuai (about 25 cents, I think), and a few items not too heavy to cary for the next several weeks. The highlight of the day, though, was bicycling through rice paddies to Erhai Hu, a lovely lake surrounded by peasant hamlets. It would be easy to visit China and think it's full of cities and cars and shops like the western world we're used to, but a trip past women bent at the waist in the fields, through winding streets wide enough for a minibus to pass a scooter, and around corners where little kids shout "hello," turn and run, and then cutely throw rocks at the tall hairy white people shows a side of china that's got more of a foot in its own past than what it's got in the modern world.

Tomorrow we take a bus to Lijiang, which will probably be rather nippy, but hopefully not as snowed in as the center of the country. If Tiger Leaping Gorge isn't snowed in, we'll hike that soon.

happy new year, and may the rat bring you luck!