Squat toilets and no language skills!

I think mainland China might be more bearable than I thought. We flew into Kunming and were instantly surprised at how unexpectedly ordered the driving was, and how new all the buildings and services were. There are certainly no 30 year old Bolivian buses here, at least that we have seen so far. The toilets are another story however, but I suppose it's OK because we didn't have our sights set too high on that front anyway.

We are staying at a great hostel right in the centre of the action, and it has an outside deck where we sat last night taking in the view. At 11pm there were still people everywhere, worshipping their preferred god, the one of shopping. The progress and scale of China has to be seen to be believed, I suppose. Kunming is a modest city of about 1.4m people (I think), but is only one of hundreds, if not thousands of others.

We have absolutely no idea about the Chinese language, and are being put to shame by all the other seasoned travellers here who can get around fine with their Mandarin skills. But the Chinese people themselves are quite accommodating, and are ready to have a laugh at a moment's notice, even if they can't understand us and we can't understand them. We both feel quite stupid because we can't even order anything at a restaurant, and we have had to resort to pointing at menus and maps like a total idiot. Being so blonde at the moment has its downside - All the little kids stare at me and the girls in the shops dare each other to say 'hello'! I certainly stand out in the crowd.

We are having a quiet day today and tomorrow we are going out to the stone forest which is quite touristy but apparently worth it. It's about 120km from town. For those interested, it's an area of karst limestone pillars.

I'll also try to put up some photos from America that weren't on the previous blog.

xox for now.