Xi Shuang Ban Na

I've been trying to post this blog for 3 days now but apparently Blogger can't handle the video I wanted to attach. Lame!

So, this little vacation we went on was supposedly hosted by Mr. Tong (guanxi guy). It was me and Adam, Anna (HR girl), Mrs. Zheng (Head of HR), and two of Mr. Tong’s friends: Mrs. Yu (Pomeranian lady) and some other lady (I think Mrs. Ying) and her daughter. Well, because we heard that Mr. Tong invited us, we figured he would be going too. So we expected a certain level of accommodation. The place we went is called Xi Shuang Ban Na, and it’s a tropical town in the Yunnan province in South China. We were thinking it was going to be a nice relaxing time so of course, we were all for it. But here’s what REALLY happened:

We got picked up at 7am on Monday and drove to the Hefei airport. The flight was about 2 ½ hours and we arrived in Kun Ming, the capital of Yunnan. The weather was very nice so we spent some time walking around outside.

Adam and I had basically no idea what our itinerary was because the only person who could translate for us there was Anna, and her English isn’t very good. We’d ask her “What are we doing today?” and she’d tell us one or two things out of the 6 or so things we were actually doing. So all I knew about this first day was that we were taking a bus from Kun Ming to Xi Shuang Ban Na at 6:00pm. The bus ride was going to be 5 hours so I knew we’d have to eat dinner beforehand. As the time crept closer and closer to 6:00, I wondered if we were going to miss our bus. Mrs. Yu and Mrs. Ying were taking their sweet time buying fruit so we ended up eating at McDonald’s, which was kind of a relief. We made it to the bus right at 6:00, but to my dismay, the bus didn’t actually leave until 7:15. When we finally got to our destination, the bus dropped us all off at the same crappy hotel. And it was at this point that I realized we were on a group tour, much like the one my parents and I took in Spain, only crappier. My fantasy of a relaxing tropical vacation was dead. It was about 12:30am when we got there and we were to be up and ready to go again by 7:00am. When we got to our room, we knew this was going to be an interesting trip.

For the first time ever, we stayed at a hotel without a western toilet. By the way, I hope you’re not tired of hearing about squat toilets because I have MUCH more to say on the matter later. Here’s a picture of the bathroom:

The squat toilet was inconveniently placed right under the showerhead so you had to be careful not to step in it when showering. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a list I made of everything wrong with this hotel room (according to my smug American standards): Squat toilet, shower drain is the toilet, showerhead really sucks, no internet, only one outlet works, no soap provided, only one towel provided, no bottled water provided, water dispenser provided but is sketchy and glasses provided are dirty, no room temperature controls, hard bed, flat pillows, thin walls.

I debated whether or not to tell Anna how much the room sucked, but luckily the following morning she took the initiative and said “Maybe, this is the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed at” and we agreed. She didn’t bring a toothbrush because most Chinese hotels provide them and we didn’t bring our own soap, so we were in the same boat. We asked if the next hotel would be better and she said, “Maybe…. it will be the same.” She overuses the word “maybe” so I never know what’s going to follow it. She explained that because it’s Chinese New Year, all the good hotels are booked up months in advance.

The breakfast provided by this hotel consisted of steam buns and warm soy milk. I didn’t drink the soy milk, but Adam tried it and was disgusted, and that doesn’t happen often. Anyways, we got back on the bus and headed for the Wild Elephant Vale. This is somewhat of a nature preserve that apparently has wild elephants and monkeys and stuff. But truthfully, there are way too many tourists for any wild animals to come near. We took a trail and walked all through the jungle:

And then we got to the touristy part where you can pay to have your picture taken with birds and monkeys. Adam did both.

The lunch we had there was amazing, though. Barbeque at its best. I got some squid on a stick just so I could take a picture of it:

But it was too spicy so I couldn’t finish eating it. They had some trained elephants putting on a
show (to make up for the fact that there were no wild ones) and we both got our pictures taken sitting on one.

After that, we went on another jungle hike at a different location. Due to my lack of knowledge
about the itinerary, I didn’t wear appropriate shoes. Not high heels or anything, just not tennis shoes. There was another trained animal show at this place and the tiger looked seriously pissed but it was jumping through hoops anyways so we knew they weren’t treating it nicely. After that, we walked up to a place where someone blew a whistle and dozens of peacocks flew out of the jungle and into a clearing where you could feed them.

Then we walked further up to see a Dai minority village, which was kinda boring. It was at this
point that I was getting pretty tired. But we ventured onward, further up the mountain to do more hiking! I’ve decided I don’t like going on vacation with Chinese people (or maybe just Chinese women). You know that stereotype we have about them taking lot’s of pictures? Well it’s true. It’s probably the truest stereotype that exists. These women took pictures of themselves and each other next to every stinkin’ thing. And they had to get every permutation: one with just themselves, then just a few of them, then a group shot, then they’d make us get in the picture. Sometimes they’d take a serious shot and an action shot. And ALWAYS they had us pointing towards the sun so I have a feeling I look angry in every picture because I was squinting. It just made everything go that much slower. Here are a couple of the very few pictures I took:

When we got to our new hotel, the bathroom was even worse. I’m sad to say I forgot to get a
picture of it but I did make a new list of cons, with a few pros. Cons: No counter space, worse flushing toilet, no towels provided, no toilet paper provided, no soap (again), still no internet, hot and cold water opposite of what it says, and no actual hot water, just warm. Also, roosters woke us up at 5:00am. Pros: Better showerhead, better beds, and better pillows. But the no towels thing was just flabbergasting to me. How can you expect people to bring their own towels? They’d take up so much luggage space! I asked Anna, "So how much does this place cost per night, like $5?" And she was like, “Oh no, 300 yuan”. That’s about the price of a Super 8 motel, and they have free internet! But they’re only charging that much because it’s Chinese New Year and they know they can get people to pay it. I wonder how much a hotel with a western toilet would have cost…

That night, we had a cafeteria style dinner, and then went to see a show put on by the Dai minority people. And THAT was cool, more so because it was so crazy than because it was awesome. The dancing was not professional and the costumes were ridiculous. There may or may not be a video attached below:

The next day, we visited a Buddhist temple that was newly built in 2005. It was very lovely. This time I came prepared with tennis shoes.

We visited another Dai village and a lady showed us a Dai house and talked about how they lived, then tried to sell us some silver souvenirs. Then we ate lunch, visited a few touristy shops, then went to a flower and plant garden. The garden was pretty lame, but of course our friends had to take pictures with every bush. We went on a mini cruise before dinner and met a little boy who spoke pretty good English. Here are couple pictures:

We had another cafeteria style dinner and saw another show. This time the dancing was a bit better but the show in general was less fun because they played a couple of games involving audience members that seemed to go on forever.

The next day was all travel, back to Kun Ming. We crossed over a large bridge that they claimed was the highest bridge in the world, but if you google it, you’ll see that China has already built another one that’s even higher. Here’s a picture of our bridge:

Now, our first stop on the way back was at a little hillside tea farm where you could sample their teas and then buy some if you wanted. I didn’t necessarily have to pee when we got there, and if I’d known from the start what their bathroom looked like, I probably wouldn’t have sampled any tea. But I didn’t check, and for that I paid the price. I think the worst public squat toilet I’ve
ever used up until this point just had a nasty wet floor and smelled bad. This one had no stall doors. And even worse than that, people stood there and watched you pee while they waited for their turn because god forbid they stand too far back, and someone skips them in line. Being in line (for anything) in China is an interesting thing. Like I said before, people will skip you if you’re not close enough to the person in front of you. Soooooo, that made for an uncomfortable pee. In America, if I go into a public bathroom and the lock on the door is broken, I go to another
stall…

And then at lunch time, we stopped at this roadside cafeteria-like place and their bathrooms were a little worse even! They didn’t have a flushing mechanism. It was just a hole in the ground leading to who knows where. I really wish I could have gotten a picture of it but I couldn’t because there were always people in there. I grabbed one from the internet that was similar:

I found myself just being thankful that they separated the bathrooms by gender. I really hope that I’ve now seen the worst. Anyways, when we got back to Kun Ming, we had a fabulous dinner at a nice restaurant, then headed to the airport. And that concludes our journey. It’s taken me until now to catch up on the sleep I lost every night from going to bed late and getting up early. But I learned that if you’re going to travel during Chinese New Year, you need to make your plans about 4-6 months in advance if you want a good hotel. If we get invited on another one of these, I’m not sure what we’ll say.