Mongolia had been an adventure and was a bikers heaven less the wind. It was funny to think it was all over and we would be flying back to China soon enough. However, before we left we were treated to an amazing cultural music and dance show, Turmen Eek. There was dance, shamanism, loads of instruments, including one which could be made to sound like the neigh of a horse, and the amazing throat singing that sounds like a didgeridoo. Both of us were mesmorised for the hour and left wanting more.
The morning arrived and we carried our masses of luggage down 5 flights of stairs to load up the small sedan taxi to the airport. The bikes were hanging out the back with the boot strapped down on top for extra security so they wouldn't fly out, and all the bags and Calvin squeezed into the back seat.
 |
| Get in there! |
It was great to get on a plane and have a birds eye view of where we crossed the Gobi Desert and some of our earlier China trip.
After some unexpectedly long delays at Beijing airport to get to Kunming, 7 hours turned into 11 hours turned into 15 hours, we made our destination. We loaded up a small sedan taxi again and had a very confusing payment argument with the driver who even though they wrote the number down (which we had paid) continued to want more. Frustrated after a while they left, great result for us but they'll probably never serve a foreigner again.
Kunming was a great city to land in and we had struck a prime location with everything we wanted around the corner from us. Meng Zhi Nan hotel near the corner of Tangshuang Rd and Huancheng South Rd. Street food, supermarket, bike shops, fruit stalls, tea shops, baozi and a newly discovered Mantou! We managed to find a bike shop, or maybe supplier, that had every kind of bike part under the sun and finally got Kate a proper mud guard so no more wet arse. It was good timing as we were apparently heading into monsoon season and Kunming was holding to that.
Taxi dude probably wanted a tip
ReplyDelete