Pan-Asian Gallivanting

Here I am backtracking on my journey….but I’ll give it a shot.

After leaving Hong Kong on November 21st I began a very long journey to Yunnan Province. First I took a train from Kowloon, Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China where I passed through Chinese immigration. Then I took another train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou.

In Guangzhou I experienced my first dose of China and what it is like to be in a country where nobody speaks a lick of English. Thumbing around at the train terminal, I went from ticket booth to ticket booth trying to get them to sell me a train ticket to Kunming that evening. Finally I came upon a teller who spoke a little bit of English…and by little I mean 10 words tops. In the few words that she knew she told me, no more like pointed to me on a map, that I was at the East Train Station and that I must go to the West Train Station in order to purchase the ticket. Then she graciously told me which bus # to take.

So there I was, hopping onto a bus that I wasn’t sure whether or not would reach the train station in a totally new and unknown culture…eeek! Luckily I reached my destination, bought the sleeper ticket and then left for Kunming.

It took 29 hours and I arrived in Kunming at 1am…