Forums > Travel Yunnan > Mouding Mushroom Festival As I said before, the festival is not in Shiping 'City', but in Longpeng on the 6th of August.
news.kunming.cn/yn-news/content/2012-07/06/content_3010186.htm
www.hh.cn/news_1/xw01/201207/t20120726_390255.html
I doubt that you can find an accurate programme online, but after a 'receiving guests' period there will be an opening ceremony where I assume they will drag out the Huayao Yi in their splendid costumes, followed by lunch (mushrooms?).
The main mystery is what 跳万人烟盒舞 the 10000 men cigarette dance will be.
Longpeng lies on the old road between Tonghai and Shiping. There is a bus about every hour on this road, Longpeng has a (small) number of hotels, which will either be booked out or heavily inflated for the event.
Forums > Travel Yunnan > Whats good in Gejiu? I have never lived in Gejiu, it is one of the few cities I have never even stayed in. However, a few thoughts.
Depending on the hours you will be working, I would consider actually living in Mengzi, now less than one hour away through the tunnel. Plenty of modern apartments and an overall much cleaner city: the honour of being the administrative center of Honghe was taken away from Gejiu a few years ago as the city had run out of space to expand.
Directly around Gejiu you have more a history of heavy industry with the population overwhelmingly Han Chinese. The immediate vicinity of Gejiu and indeed the city itself is still dominated by grimy mining operations with most likely effects on air and water pollution. Sitting in a very small depression where air gets easily trapped certainly does not help.
However, the situation changes completely once you cross the Red River, which is, by bus, only about an hour away. However, from a biking perspective this much further away: the direct route now goes through a long tunnel and then almost a mile down. Then it is another mile up to the more interesting minority areas. North of Gejiu is a succession of plains with the cities of Shiping, Jianshui and Mengzi, all more pleasant than Gejiu and easy to reach.
Transport: eventually the new expressway connecting Kaiyuan and Mile to Kunming will open, which will cut journey times from Gejiu to Kunming to about four hours. The railway from Mengzi to Yuxi was supposed to open this November, but there were still sections unfinished a few weeks ago. Again, once it opens, transport to Kunming will become more convenient.
Overall, I would say that Gejiu would not be in top 100 places to live in Yunnan.
Forums > Travel Yunnan > Chinese spraying chemicals at Lao border, what is that? Unlikely to be bugs, more something you might be having on your shoes or the bus on its tires. I do not know what it was, but I think it might be a livestock disease, maybe foot-and-mouth.
This would also explain the thorough bag searches: not looking for contraband, but meat products. Usually the bags just go through x-ray, but that would not pick up foodstuffs.
Forums > Travel Yunnan > Mouding Mushroom Festival Just a few links, the event seems to be held every year from July 20-26:
www.yn.chinanews.com/pub/2012/yunnan_0717/63417.html
en.kunming.cn/index/content/2012-07/17/content_3021442.htm
news.k618.cn/reporter/201207/t20120710_2261619.htm
Yimen is actually a pleasant town with good public parks and a nice nearby temple area built around a spring 龙泉寺, go up to the reservoir dam and follow the walkway around it, about 20min walk from the main square.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Where can i get a yellow fever vaccine? I am not a doctor, but I think in the UK they give you either Malarone (atovaquone/proguanil) or Doxycycline nowadays, which are also recommended on the page you mention. Either might be easier to find in China.
I took Lariam for a longer while some twenty years back and then bought some ten years ago over the counter in Bangkok which gave me some of the side-effects associated with Lariam in a really bad way. It stopped when I stopped taking the pills. So even if you have taken Lariam before it does not mean you will not suffer from the effects now. Searching for side effects of Lariam gives you pretty horrific stories, such as edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/05/19/lariam/. AFAIK, Roche has stopped marketing Lariam for malaria prevention.
Getting away: Lijiang
Posted byI do not think Yereth managed to crawl out of bed 'looking for the perfect early morning shot': they do not keep the lanterns on until the morning, so it was probably accidental shutter release on the way home after a few beers.
Best time for a good picture at Black Dragon Pool is early morning, after 8:30 the light turns flat even in winter. Plus bring a long lens to shorten the perspective. With your Lijiang 80Y ticket you only get one entrance to the park, but it is easy to see if it will be worthwhile from the outside.
I am not sure if the building still exists, but near the market is/was a two story building where (with a little bribe to a local resident) you could climb on the roof for a shot over the old city towards the mountain: best in the afternoon.
Lijiang is the only place where I hesitate to take photos of the very few remaining locals. They must be feeling like Paris Hilton out in her underwear every time they leave their house. Give them a break.
Riding into Kunming's future
Posted byThe airport express busses are supposed to be starting at 5am, not sure if it is true though. #1 runs from the old Nanjiang Hotel at Xiaoximen.
en.kunming.cn/index/content/2012-03/05/content_2865380.htm
Otherwise I have found that it is no problem getting a taxi early in the morning from the Kundu area, much easier than later in the day. Around 6am plenty of taxis still show up to take people back from a night out and they always seemed to be happy to take me rather than someone likely to throw up inside their car.
The drought: Good and bad news
Posted byYou can all check how much water you are using by looking at your water bill: a cubic meter (=1000l) of water costs 3.45Y, so if your bill comes to more than 10Y per month per person you are using more than 100l per day.
Even on our half-day rationed water in our flat, we still managed to use about 70l per person per day in April/May. We blame the cleaning lady.
Getting Away: Trailrunning Tiger Leaping Gorge
Posted byAugust is certainly not the best month to go. Even if it does not rain, the mountains are most of the time shrouded in clouds. Landslides are the biggest risk, particularly if one attempts to cross a recent one.
Properly done, the walk is not difficult and there are some ways to cut out the more boring bits. I would suggest taking a car up to a little teahouse, called something like Sunrise Guesthouse where the trail branches off the dirt road that goes up to some village. (Starting from Qiaotou the walk is first along the road, then up the mentioned dirt road, before it becomes a trail.) The best guesthouse the Naxi Family GH, IMHO, then comes after a not too difficult walk. It has the nicest views in the afternoon (clouds permitting) and is not as crowded as Halfway House. The second day would take you through the 18 bends and the highest point to Halfway GH for lunch (not many people there for lunch, many Koreans seem to arrive after dark, hiking all the way from Qiaotou), and after lunch down to the road at Tina's, from where you could take a car back to Lijiang (the walk is then all along the road).
Getting Away: Xishan
Posted byThe coming weekend is particularly good for a visit to Xishan as 三月三 (the third of March in the lunar calendar, this year on March 24th) is the traditional folk festival day 耍西山. It is an occasion for theatrical performances like local opera plays, song and dance and is extremely popular. (If you are looking for solitude, this might be a day to avoid.)
To make the most of the weekend, this year the festival is extended to Sunday as well. More info on this year's activities here: yn.yunnan.cn/html/2012-03/16/content_2097736.htm