Trip Report: Kunming

The Bamboo Temple didn’t seem terribly different from every other temple I’ve seen. It had all the elements I expected—big gold statues, a fat Buddha, gong, old trees, and a complex of buildings to wander through. The tiling on the buildings and engravings in the doors were exquisite.


There were two large rooms full of nineteenth century painted wooden statues with comic expressions and poses. In the far building there were wooden statues along the sides, one bunch of them surfing through tall waves on the heads of fish. They were fun to look at but I don’t understand. Why were they surfing? Who are they? What is the story?

So much is lost on me here.

We took a microbus (see photo below) back to town and visited the Flower and Bird Market.


The market was crazy. The walkway was jam-packed with people. The stalls sold wooden elephants (of all sizes), handbags and backpacks, rabbits, turtles, beetles, birds, indigo dyed hanging, giant tacky paintings, fried whatever you like, and so on. There were vendors in the middle of the walkway selling fruits and bunny rabbits out of baskets and off of bicycles.


see the blue tub? That’s full of beetles!



Also, while we were in Kunming, we went to Mama Fu’s Café, where I had a Naxi sandwich. This is a sandwich made with a flat, oniony bread. On it was fresh egg, tomato, cheese, cucumber and lettuce. These fresh veggies were a delicious sin which resulted in a few days a bloated stomach, gas and uncomfortable diarrhea.

My favorite part of Kunming was walking through the park on a Sunday morning. There were cute old men out taking their caged birds for walks. They’d hang them on trees and chat with each other, sit down for a game of chess or mahjong. We strolled past a row of people playing badmiton in makeshift courts, sometimes with a bicycle serving as a net. Groups of women performed line dancing and tai chi.