a tale of 3 cities

#1. I flew into Kunming last week, and was immediately whisked away to a place called Panzhihua.


#2. On the way there, we stopped for lunch at this hole in the wall place just off the highway. Doing it like the Vietnamese, we dined al-fresco under the sun and in the cool air. So cool in fact that it got pretty cold not long after. But when the wind stopped blowing, it got too hot T___T


#3. What's famous here are their roasted chicken. Skin roasted to a crisp perfection, as crispy as Peking Duck.


#4. Beautiful golden crispy skin.


#5. After years of sticking plastic 桃花 (tao hua) or peach blossoms onto dead branches as Chinese New Year deco, I finally see real ones! I guess it's a bit cold coz most of the flowers looks kinda shriveled. Or maybe because it was growing next to this..


#6. A toilet without doors!

This would be my first of several encounters with doorless toilet in the course of this whole trip. Some are very rudimentary, with just two holes in the ground (to accommodate two squat-tees) and no flushing system (many thanks to the river system). Others look like your modern squat toilets minus the doors. In a 4-stall toilet, one of us would be in the first while the other in the last. And we wait OK, we wait until we both finish our business before we walk out.

The one above is actually quite interesting. See, the drain there is for you to pee/poop in and it's an extension all the way from the mens' toilet. Yes, it's one longggg drain. The toilet automatically flushes every few minutes, with water gushing like a fearless river carrying everything in its way. Interesting, right?

Word of advice is, wait till it finish flushing before doing your thing.


#7. The scenery along the way is just beautiful.


#8. The sky's so blue and the clouds are like a delicate lace veil, thinly spread across an otherwise empty sky.


#9. You'll know you're in Panzihua when you see lots of dust on the roads, in the air, on the trees, on dogs, on everything! It is after all a major steel manufacturing town and lorries from nearby mines comes in droves each day.

The next day, we moved on to Huaping, where we will eat shit and sleep for the rest of our stay in China. It's two hours away from Panzhihua. Here comes the food...


#10. Oh, how I miss you my mala (super-hot) hotpot. I miss you, I miss you, muacks.


#11. Black corn. Tastes like normal corn except not so starchy.


#12. A bug. I don't know what kinda bug but it taste... green, like grass kinda green. Apparently it's good for health but thank you very much, one is enough.


#13. Lunch fit for a wedding feast. This is only half of what we had.

See, eating in China takes on a different meaning, especially when you entertain guests. For the Chinese, it's about saving face. If your guests doesn't have enough to eat, i.e. plate is clean and all the dishes sudah sapu clean also, you would come across as stingy even if that may not be the case. So they will usually over order, and will continue to order even if there's unfinished food on the table. Yes, a lot of it goes to waste but that's their culture.


#14. We stayed at the best hotel in Huaping. As you can see, it's very basic. Actually, those are courtesy of the clients to ensure we have a comfortable stay. There's also two big and two small bottles of water, packet milk drinks and fresh fruits everyday. It's a nice touch and made me feel really welcomed.


#15. They even thought about this. For a fresh lemony lime scent on my laundry.


#16. This is what I'm up to in Huaping - mine site visit. A piece of coal modeled by my colleague.

How can you tell it's coal and not some random rock? Coal has shiny surfaces, ta-dah!


#17. A locomotive carting out coal from the underground mine.


#18. An instrument to measure density of the coal. I still grapple with how it works.


#19. Coal is gold.


#20. Orange so fresh that it still have green leaves at the stalk.


#21. Cute girl living with her family at the mine workers' quarters.


#22. Simple lunch at the mine consisting of black chicken, potatoes and forest tubers. A bit oily but it was soooo good.


#23. Coal carts. And that's the end of all things related to mining.


#24. As we had to catch our flight back to KL from Kunming, we hit the road after breakfast that morning as the journey will take between 5-7 hours.

The road from Huaping to Panzhihua is dotted with tunnels and bridges across valleys high and low. Some of the tunnels have dual-carriageways. This is the only one that doesn't have lights. It's scary coz you can't see the end when you enter it and you rely solely on the lights of vehicles in the tunnel.

Oh, digress a bit. We've got the coolest driver! See, customer service in China is actually very good. Even the attendant at the toll is super polite and pretty and smiley. Example:

"I received 100 yuan from you sir. The journey's cost is 60 yuan. Here is your change of 40 yuan sir. Have a good day."

To all this, our driver just stared blankly ahead and drove off without acknowledging the person at all. Wah, damn lansi.


#25. It was late by the time we got into Kunming. So we did dinner, a spot of shopping at Carrefour and camwhoring with Ronald.

It was absolutely freezing that night! It has to be something like 2°C or 3°C. Luckily the client has prepared some jackets for us.

See, they came to KL in mid December last year and the receiving party told them that it's a little cold in KL for it has been raining lately. For guests who came to Malaysia with swimming trunks (thinking that KL has a coastline), they were a little concerned upon hearing that. What's the temperature, they asked. 25°C. When they went back to Huaping, they bought some 20 down feather jackets ahead of our visit, haha.


#26. The next morning in Kunming, we wandered off on our own in search of some local breakfast. So tired of hotel food by now. This shop is nearby our hotel and is crowded with locals.


#27. Their signature dish is the 过桥米线 (guo qiao mi xian) or "over the bridge noodles". It's famous in Kunming and nothing too special in my opinion, but it's spicy just the way I like it!


#28. It says an chuan tao, which is basically condoms. The interesting thing about this vending machine is, it's on a public street and mounted next to a primary school!


#29. And that's it for this trip. Till the next time I'm in China again.