Day 8: Bad Luck Part 1

The highlight of today is to pay a visit to ShiLin aka Stone forest. It is a massive collection of limestone pillars split and eroded by rain with the tallest reaching 30m high. My hostel is less than 5mins walk from the enterance and so I am there very early. So early that the local guides have not even started work. I can see them crossing the streets. It is easy to idenfity them as they are wearing their traditional dress.



And at the enterance, I see more of them putting on makeup, getting ready to work.



ShiLin is World Heritage, as well as a UNSECO site.



First look at ShiLin.





Most of the people here belongs to the Yi minority group. You can even put on their traditional dresses to take photo, for a fee ofcourse. Many people are willing to pay for it.







Inscriptions on the stones. Each of these wordings have their meaning.



Like this, 天下弟一奇观 The word 弟 is purposely use using rather than the actual 第 as there is a stone forest more large scale than this somewhere else in the world and so by using the word 弟, it is like a little brother to the larger one. See it for yourself.



An earthquake hit this place sometime ago and the piece of stone got caught like this. After that, the locals have this saying that this stone will fall on whoever has done something wrong and is guilty conscious. So it is now like a test to ask a person to walk under it. I did and nothing happens. See, told you I am a good man. HAHAHA.....



Can you spot me?



This is refer to as the sword peak as they are all pointed like swords.



Legend has it that an immortal 张国老, has slept here before. So I have to sleep on it too.



A walk through these stones. Does it look like those chinese kongfu rock formation?



The narrowest path.



The Sword Peak Lake



At a viewing pavillion overlooking the whole area.







So many people have touch this that it has become so smooth.



Loud music had led me to a traditional folk dance performance.







Took the chance to grab a photo during their rest time.



This forest is huge.



A huge traditional instrument.



Its time for my signature shot. Thats me flying!!



More photos in the forest.





As I wonder around this forest, I walked into another place where people puts on these traditional dresses for photos.



I also went ahead to grab one.



In the Yi minority language, AH-HEI-GE means guy and AH-SI-MA means girl. This forest is said to be the creation of AH-SI-MA and AH-HEI-GE. So I had to find myself a AH-SI-MA for a photo right? I randomly asked a fellow tourist to take a photo together.



Never knew that I was so popular, more AH-SI-MA came to me for photographs.



Well, maybe I was one of the few AH-HEI-GE around. HAHA.... Last look at the stone forest before I left.



Went back to the same restaurant that I had dinner last night. Had the YunNan famous 鸡汤过桥米线. Like many chinese dishes, there is a story behind this but too bad I did not manage to find out.



The soup is boiling hot but the noodles and such are raw. So you will have to put them into the soup immediately so that they will be cooked. Starting from the meats around the plate, then the vegetable in the center and lastly the noodles.



Here we have a nice and delicious noodle soup.



Seeing that I am alone, the boss asked me to join him and his wife for lunch. They even offer me these food for free before I ordered the noodles. Great hospitality! Kind and friendly. But I really want to try the local speciality. Nevertheless, we ended up dinning together.



This is their shop. Remember to pay them a visit if you happen to be there. The food's great.



After a nice lunch, I went back to my hostel, packed my stuff and headed off to Kunming City to meet Chris, another fellow biker who happens to be in China. I got to know him online and we hope to ride for some distance together. But I never made it to kunming. Remember I mentioned previously that motorcycle needs to have a special number plate to be allowed in the city center? As I was riding in Kunming, I rode into the city center without even realising it. There were no signs to tell me where the boundary starts. Worse of all, I got stop by the cops. Well, after a short conversion, he was nice enough to let me off but as I was not allowed to ride in the city center, he made me push my bike all the way out of the city center. WHAT?! Do you know how far that is? But I had no choice. This is my only way out. So with my 30kg backpack, I pushed my 125cc motorcycle across the busiest streets for a few kilometers until I was out of the city center. Ofcourse, I became the center of attraction. Everyone were looking at me. Man, I tell you it was really very tiring.

After resting enough, I rode off towards Dali direction. Although I know that it is too far for me get to Dali by today, I just wanted to get nearer. Dian Chi was along the way and so I went to take a look.





As the sky falls dark, I stopped at a small town along the way for the night. Then came my second round of bad luck. It was raining and I could not find a BinGuan to stay at. After circling for awhile, I finally spotted one. But I guess this town does not have aliens (this is the term they use to refer to people who are not of china nationality on formal documents) around. It is normal to get registered before they allow you to stay. So this was what happeneded. The following conversation happened in Chinese, not English.


Lady: Can I have your Identification Card for registeration.

Me: How about passport? I am not of China nationality.

Lady: You are not from China? Ok, but you got to have an IC right?

Me: Yes, but I did not bring it. IC dont work in overseas anyway. Passport is my form of identification when I am out of country.

Lady: But you are not out of country. You are in China.

(Which part of I am not China Chinese does she not understand?)

Me: Look, I had stayed at many BinGuan for the past few days and they registered me using my passport.

Lady: No IC no stay.


Ok, fine. So I went off in the rain looking for another BinGuan. Found one but they told me "NO ALIENS ALLOWED!!" "No aliens are allow to stay in BinGuan, only hotels," they said. Ok. I was tired enough after having to push the bike for such a long distance and now I am stuck in the rain with no place to stay for the night? Hotel? It is expensive. But I have no choice. So I went walking around looking for a hotel. I am wet and dirty, and I have dirt all over my face. Everyone that walked passed gave me the stare which carrys the meaning: What a dirty and poor guy. Man, I tell you, this is the first time that I had the feeling of being looked down at. i dont like that feeling.

Mintues later, found a hotel, went in, asked for a room. Ok, they allowed me to stay. Then I asked if there is internet in the room. They said internet services are only available in bigger rooms, not in the normal rooms. So I asked how much is the difference. 20RMB. Ok I will take it. (At the moment I was hoping that she dont give me the are you sure look.) Thankfully she didn't.

The room is really quite big.



There is even a mahjong set and table.



First thing I do when I enter a hotel room is to on the aircon. But I realised that it does not work. The computer's mic and speaker are also not working. You mean my bad luck is not over? So I called the operator.

Me: Hi, can you send someoone up to my room and take a look at the aircon? It's not working.

Operator: Oh, all our aircons do not work.

*Faint*

Is this a hotel or what? So I open the windows. Thankfully it is quite cooling here and with the windows open, the temperature drops to about 21degree celcuis. I took this chance to do some laundary.



Oh by the way, do I look so awful to be looked down upon?



I hope not. Anyway, tomorrow will be a better day.


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