Greetings and travel update

14 februari 2007

Hi!

Just thought it was time to send another travel update.

We are now back in China, traveling around the southern province of Yunnan.

Thailand was a great couple of weeks where we traveled some, but mostly relaxed, read books on the beach, and ate great Thai food. Thailand was very different from China! At least where we were, in the south, things were much cleaner and more organized in general (sometimes it felt like being in Stockholm, with all the Swedish being spoken around us). However, it was still Asia. Every morning we could see pick-ups packed with 20 or so people standing in the back, as the truck drove down the major highways. This is how people commuted to work. And in our area, people would stand on street corners holding a monkey, a huge snake, or even an eagle!, and as we walked by, they would thrust this animal towards us, trying to entice us to hold it--for a fee, of course--and take a picture!

Last week we were in Chengdu, China, for Amity Foundation's Conference. We will write more in our next real letter, but it was a good week. It was especially great to see all of our colleagues again. One night we also had a chance to go to a theatre and watch Chinese acting, music, and other things. It was all very high quality, with gorgeous clothing, and some things which were hilarious! (on our web page now you can see one such act, yet another involving tea pouring)

We are in the process of updating our web page with pictures and videos. We have just added three new videos, including of pandas eating and of us elephant riding in Thailand. When we return home to Chengxian we will be sure to send another real letter with more pictures, and we will also update our web page much more, including with pictures from Chengxian, and from our winter travels!

Right now we are traveling around Yunnan Province. First we took the 19-hour night train from Chengdu to Kunming, a city at about 1800 meters, making it higher than Denver, I believe. We were mostly quite impressed by the city, which was definitely the freshest and cleanest city we have seen in China so far. (See attached pic, which we have NOT digitally altered to improve the colors of the sky, as they so often do here in China!)

However, since the city appeared to be so clean and well-to-do, we felt even more disturbed by the large amount of beggars everywhere. Something feels very wrong with that.

Now we have traveled northwest to the old, cute, and touristy city of Dali. We love it though! (see attached pic of the city street with the mountain). It feels like a mountain town with fresh air, bright night stars, and cute streets with shops, restaurants, and cafes everywhere. Today, together with our friend and Amity colleague, Andrew, we hiked up the mountainside, to 2600 meters, to a temple and a great cafe. Sometimes it was freezing cold as we hiked, and for a few minutes it even started to hail, but in general the weather here is very favorable. It is February, after all, and you can see in the flower picture why they call Kunming the "Spring City."

One negative aspect of this city is the fact that we are continuously offered drugs from cute old ladies on the street! At first we didn't understand what they were saying to us, when they would come up and offer. Then we understood they were saying, "You want to smoke?" We have never encountered this before in China, but we assume it is due to the large number of tourists and all the things that (some) tourists apparently want...

On Thursday we hope to take the bus to the city of Lijiang, where we hope we can at least glimpse some of what the Chinese New Year is all about (we are already hearing lots of fireworks, especially from small children who play with them on the streets).

Hope you are well. We hope to have better Internet soon, and we will write again when we can! Take care.

Keep in touch!

Love
Rachel and Tomas

Dali

Kunming tulips

Kunming seagulls

Kunming city view