the life of elyssa

My trip through southern China and Vietnam officially began yesterday when I flew to Kunming to meet up with Riina, my travel buddy. She had been backpacking throughout Yunnan province with some others.

My flight left at eight, meaning I had to wake up quite early to catch it. I had my cell set to maximum volume to prevent me from sleeping through my alarm. Silly, silly Elyssa. Naturally my phone went off five times or so. Sleep is for the weak anyway.

The shuttle bus to the plane was an interesting experience. I got on the bus and it went suddenly silent. A quick glance to my right and left made me realize everyone was staring at me. I’m always surprised by this because I always see so many foreigns around town. I guess we hang in different circles.

I did meet one girl on the bus who spoke English and was genuinely awesome. By chance, we were seated next to each other. Turns out she does marketing for Harley Davidson. A Chinese motorcycle enthusiast. Totally random, but definitely helped the flight pass quicker.

We had a stopover in Wanzhou. Picture a small town bus station with one outlet. Lengthen the road and widen it a bit. Add two circa 1933 US/1977 CN planes for (hopefully) display purposes. That’s Wanzhou airport. I can’t decide if it’s terrifying or fascinating that someone can enter the aviation system there, fly to Beijing, and then head to New York or wherever they want to go.

Whilst in Kunming, Riina and I stayed with my friend Nathaniel who recently moved there from Beijing. He took us to a club aka one of the two places to go in Kunming. Though the club was called “Banana VIP,” Circus would have been more appropriate. Imagine pyrotechnics, laser beams, a violinist, a guy in a dinosaur costume and alien mask… I could keep going but the point has been made. Let’s just say it was an entertaining accompaniment to the vodka redbulls I was enjoying.

Riina and I spent today prepping for the trip. We really should have spent it mentally prepping for this sleeper bus we took to the border. Due to landslides/flooding, it’s the only logical way to get to the Vietnamese border. The bus is three narrow beds wide and filled with people who haven’t quite realized that when using a cell phone, you don’t actually have to scream to someone who is far away. Quite ingenious technology if you ask me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2011 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.