Beautiful Yunnan

Beautiful Yunnan

I’ve got the travel bug! I really feel like going somewhere in Asia, although I know it’s not going to happen this time. I am off to Scandoland in about 6 weeks (and that’s going to be awesome too, although I still don’t know if you readers are going to enjoy my blog from Scandinavia?) But well, seeing that I am in such a buzz, at least I can do some planning for the autumn… I am thinking Hunan, maybe Yunnan, and Tibet! I’ve already been to Yunnan, and it is such a beautiful place. When I was there I was writing articles and recording broadcast stories (about the isolated mountain villages in urgent need of development) for a radio station in Sweden, so my trip was kind of controlled. I’d love to go again, and this time it would be great to have access to a shower… Last time I spend 5 days in the mountain villages (obviously necessities like showers or real toilets don't exist here) and then we went to Kunming for a day. I felt rathe dirty, walking around in beautiful and laid-back Kunming, wearing the same, muddy pants that I had worn when I got lost in the Xinhua forest, and when we had a car accident and almost drove off the edge of a hill… (Yeah, Yunnan surely offered some adventures).

The kids in the village loved my camera (but were a little bit scared of me... = blonde giant)

Here are some pictures from a beautiful, but poor province. Or well, actually, Kunming isn’t poor, and neither is the town Yuxi, a stopover on my way. But visiting the mountain villages in the Eshan County are like stepping into a whole different world. No more restaurants, fake bags or Wall Marts. Instead you meet people who have close to nothing but that are still laughing and smiling, and invite you to their house for dinner. Annual income in those villages (in 2006): 500 kuai. Quite a different aspect of China I must say.

Mountain villages



Woman doing handycraft

Cute kids

Kids in the pre school

Pre school kid