After saying goodbye to Charles and Henry at the train station I jumped on a train bound for Kunming - 24 hours away. I’ve noticed that the Chinese are in the habit of talking to each other in a very loud voice. Most of the time it sounds like they are yelling at each other but it’s just the way they communicate.
Unfortunately for me, the people in my 6-bunk train compartment were a very social and loud group who decided to talk (yell) nonstop until the lights went out at 11pm. On the upside, that’s the nice thing about staying in the hard sleeper on the train – at 11pm the lights go out and everyone goes to bed but at 7am the lights come back on along with the loud music, signaling time to get up.
After a somewhat painless 24 hours I arrived to Kunming and it was heaven – sunny and warm!
Kunming was just a stopover on my way to Dali so I stayed the night at this great little $4 hostel and spent the afternoon wandering around the city, soaking up the great weather, and trying not to let the disgusting (and very common) sounds of the Chinese hacking up a lung and then spitting the mucus onto the sidewalk or into garbage cans ruin my day.
I found myself on the local bus at rush hour, pushed up next to 2 young girls who obviously wanted to speak English with me as they were practicing (in English) what they are going to say to me. To break the ice I asked them “do you speak English”? From that point on I was bombarded with questions until it was time for one of us to get off.
I was quite surprised at how good their English was as just 12 years old. When they asked me “do you think China is beautiful”? I replied that I though China was very beautiful which prompted one of them to say “well I think you are very beautiful”! As I got off the bus one of the girls calls out to me “I love you”. Such a funny conversation!
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