Yunnan. One of China's many provinces. Home to a wide array of Chinese ethnic minorities. I spent two weeks here in February. What happened? Oh, a lot happened. Highlights?
KUNMING IS AWESOME
Kunming is the capital of Yunnan. It is said to be "the San Francisco of China" or "the Denver of China," which I find endlessly amusing because, honestly, it is only like those cities in respect to the weather. Kunming does have amazing, temperate weather, the kind that thaws the frozen souls of Beijingers. To say Kunming is beautiful kind of doesn't do it justice. It has all the grunge of a city, so "beautiful" does not quite represent it correctly. However, it has that off-beat spark that makes it comparable to San Francisco. It has lovely parks with lakes in the middle (very picturesque. Check out the pictures if you don't believe me), and it is known for its flowers and fashion scene. Overall, I was a fan of Kunming.
KUNMING IS AWESOME, BUT ILLNESS IS NOT
At least, I was a fan of Kunming until I fell crazy ill on the overnight train from Kunming to Lijiang, a rural village in rural northern Yunnan. Now, no one likes reading about illness, so I'll keep this short: I basically couldn't keep food down for 3.5 days. Unfortunately, at that point in my study abroad program's travel itinerary, we were staying in EXTREMELY rural Yunnan, in the north, where medical care was in scant supply and sanitary food was not a guarantee at the best of times. When I hit the four day illness mark, my program decided it was time to go see a doctor...
IN WHICH EMILY FINDS OUT WHAT HEALTHCARE IS LIKE IN YUNNAN
You know the game Musical Chairs? You know how they made you play it in grade school, and you thought it had no applicability to real life, that it was just a game? You were wrong.
That game was preparing you to try to see a doctor in rural Yunnan.
It's very simple: since it was during a holiday, there was one doctor in the Shangri-la Hospital to see all patients waiting to receive a diagnosis. He sat at a desk in a room. There was a chair by that desk. There was a mob of people waiting to see him. Whoever gets into that chair first gets a diagnosis. It's like Musical Chairs, minus the music and plus some serious medical issues. Let's call it "Survivor: the Chairs Edition."
In this episode of "Survivor: the Chairs Edition," I had the opportunity to use my Mandarin language skills to attempt to communicate my situation, and my RA and our guide helped make sure we were actually communicating, not just saying words and not understanding each other. I then showed him some of the English medication I had taken to help alleviate my symptoms. He looks at this for a moment, like an archaeologist looks at a vaguely intriguing fossil, and then hands it back to me. He diagnoses me with gastroenteritis (still not sure that is what I had, but I think it was?) and prescribes me roughly 6 different types of medication. Unfortunately, the one medication I needed, a strong round of antibacterial meds, was the one thing he did not give me, since they likely didn't have any in rural Yunnan. I later talked to a Beijing doctor, who said what I was given should have helped eventually ("eventually" being the operative and disconcerting part of the sentence). Thankfully, my mom is a genius and had me bring Cipro to China, and I was genius enough to bring it with me on the Yunnan trip. Thus, I was eventually cured of my Yunnan disease, and I was able to attempt eating rice while enjoying Napa Village.
NAPA CUN
The living room of the homestay
The view outside the village leader's window
Napa Cun (纳帕村） is a village in rural Yunnan that was once part of the vast Tibetan subregion in China. Thus, the culture of the town is heavily steeped in Tibetan tradition. The women wear garb typical of a Tibetan household, and the houses all are believers in the Gelugpa sub-sect of Tibetan Buddhism, or they rejected Buddhism altogether, it's either one or the other. I was living with one of the families in Napa Village, with a mother, father, grandmother and an adorable two year old. Overall, the family was great. It would have been even better if I wasn't deathly sick, but it was still awesome nonetheless.
There is nothing like living in Napa Cun. It is authentically China, in its own way. These people have been braving the mountains of Tibet since time immemorial, and they are a hardy brood. I was literally living with them in their houses, and when I went to the bathroom (outside in an outhouse), I got to say hi to the yaks (and their two foot long horns).
Of course, that one night when I was very sick, Napa Cun was an interesting place to be ill. I literally had a little one-person party outside, in the yard, with the yaks and the obnoxious mallard duck that quacked its head off constantly. I had a flashlight, which I clung to like my life depended on it (it kind of did depend on it, actually....there was a ladder to climb in and out of the house, so the flashlight became very necessary). I had my cellphone, which SOMEHOW had service in Napa Cun, which I used to call my mother in the States to be like "Yeah, this isn't food poisoning...thoughts? Oh, and what is my medical insurance number again?" Actually, I think it was way more panicked than that, but that was the general gist of the call. All I can say is that the time change works in my favor when I want to call the States at 3 am. Anyways, I survived (again), and all was well. I really do like Napa Cun. The people are incredibly friendly, we had all kinds of dance parties, and I think my Napa Cun host family genuinely didn't want me to die.
...AND THEN TIGER LEAPING GORGE HAPPENED
So, when we went to Tiger Leaping Gorge, I had kept food down for a day and a half. I nonetheless decided to try to climb this gorge. This hike is 22 km, and the first part and the last part are INTENSE, can't-breathe, legs-burning, heart-committing-sepaku kind of intense. Put it this way: I ran the San Francisco half-marathon in July of 2010. I am in roughly as good of shape right now as I was in July. This hike was overall harder than the half-marathon. That may have been because I hadn't eaten food for four days of that week, or because I was on bed rest for most of the week. Regardless, it was a hard hike.
But, it was also beautiful. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. The sheer enormity of the mountains and the depth of the gorge just blew my mind. It was majesty as far as the eye could see. I have pictures, but they only barely do it justice.
AND WE WENT TO OLD TOWNS. AND IT WAS PICTURESQUE.
There is nothing like living in Napa Cun. It is authentically China, in its own way. These people have been braving the mountains of Tibet since time immemorial, and they are a hardy brood. I was literally living with them in their houses, and when I went to the bathroom (outside in an outhouse), I got to say hi to the yaks (and their two foot long horns).
Of course, that one night when I was very sick, Napa Cun was an interesting place to be ill. I literally had a little one-person party outside, in the yard, with the yaks and the obnoxious mallard duck that quacked its head off constantly. I had a flashlight, which I clung to like my life depended on it (it kind of did depend on it, actually....there was a ladder to climb in and out of the house, so the flashlight became very necessary). I had my cellphone, which SOMEHOW had service in Napa Cun, which I used to call my mother in the States to be like "Yeah, this isn't food poisoning...thoughts? Oh, and what is my medical insurance number again?" Actually, I think it was way more panicked than that, but that was the general gist of the call. All I can say is that the time change works in my favor when I want to call the States at 3 am. Anyways, I survived (again), and all was well. I really do like Napa Cun. The people are incredibly friendly, we had all kinds of dance parties, and I think my Napa Cun host family genuinely didn't want me to die.
...AND THEN TIGER LEAPING GORGE HAPPENED
So, when we went to Tiger Leaping Gorge, I had kept food down for a day and a half. I nonetheless decided to try to climb this gorge. This hike is 22 km, and the first part and the last part are INTENSE, can't-breathe, legs-burning, heart-committing-sepaku kind of intense. Put it this way: I ran the San Francisco half-marathon in July of 2010. I am in roughly as good of shape right now as I was in July. This hike was overall harder than the half-marathon. That may have been because I hadn't eaten food for four days of that week, or because I was on bed rest for most of the week. Regardless, it was a hard hike.
But, it was also beautiful. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. The sheer enormity of the mountains and the depth of the gorge just blew my mind. It was majesty as far as the eye could see. I have pictures, but they only barely do it justice.
AND WE WENT TO OLD TOWNS. AND IT WAS PICTURESQUE.
Here, have some pictures:
This concludes the Yunnan travel adventures. It was full of ups and downs, of staying with Tibetan families and dancing Tibetan dances, of illness and overcoming mountains. It's a trip I will never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment