Cowfeathers Farm to Foxcroft Farm: Out of the City

We left the confines of Kunming today, to explore a bit of Yunnan's countryside and beautiful sights. I felt much at ease as we wended our way into the hills and started seeing corn. Plus every other type of Chinese vegetable imaginable. They plant the crops even on fairly sharp hillsides, between rock outcroppings, everywhere. The fields are neatly kept, appear constantly tended, and are small patches of many things, instead of the American method of large patches of few crops. Most all the cultivation and maintenance and harvesting is done by hand, and we saw many people working the fields. They still seem fairly nattily attired, but have the traditional and practical cone shaped hats on their heads, and often large open baskets on their backs. The hoe is the tool of choice, and the water buffalo the heavy help where needed, although we saw a donkey or two and some ponies (I think- pretty scrawny equines!). This is how they grow the produce for some 1.4 billion people.

The villages are largely composed of low slung clay dwellings, mostly bricks, not seemingly hard fired, or in some places more stucco like outer walls. There are often windows that appear to have nothing in the openings. Some roofs are tin or tile and some are thatched. Most homes appear more rustic than mean. I would doubt there was electricity in most of the farm houses, and I'm doubtful about running water. Many homes had corn, tied in clusters, hanging from the roof, or A-framed hangers. Lots of chickens running around, and tough dogs that I don't believe are pets, but seem to ignore the humans completely. Evidently "Here kittykittykittykitty" is not universal, as none of the cats I tried this on even looked my way.

One of the most stately of farm houses.

We rode in a small bus with another tour guide that was often incomprehensible, but evidently full of information. At some point you listen so hard, trying to make sense of words your brain starts rejecting all words as nonsense.
Our first destination was Jia Xiang. This is an amazing area southeast of Kunming, in the lands of the Yi people. It has the most amazing, often enormous caves. According to our guide (I think) he told us the area was discovered only in 1986 when the Chinese government was searching for oil, and found these caves. I can believe this, as the road to Jia Xiang was probably made in 1987, and has had no lovin' since. But it is hard to imagine this area was not widely known until then. Of course, "discovered" seems a bit presumptive, as the Yi peoples had been using the caves for thousands of years.

Leaving the light

We wandered around this site, each turn a new "Oooooh" or "Ahhhh". We made to the ceremonial cave when some Chinese asked if they could get a picture with Dr. Natalie- her blond hair setting her well apart. I am less blond these days, and was wearing a hat, so thought to escape much notice. Indeed I did until later in the day, when I was in the light of above ground, and my blue eyes were noted..."Pic-ture?" I obliged with the expected "Peace" sign.

The caves are beautifully and colorfully lit.

Eerie and surreal pools, some as big as 100m square, deep in the caves of Jia Xiang

Jia Xiang is another place rife with stairs. In one section of the caves, the climb is considered strenuous and you can hire a litter to take you up. You sit in a big armchair, supported by two poles, and a man at front and back. They lift you up and carry you the 322 stairs to the top of the section. This is done for the capitalistic fee of 50yuan, about $7.50. We had lunch at the Jia Xiang hotel, another bounty of food. For such a small people- not many overweight folks in China, they sure can eat! At the hotel was an artist, doing traditional Chinese art. We bought a simple painting of a chicken, on rice paper. Chinese Chicken.
After lunch we headed to the Stone Forest.

Tod identifies with Crocodile Rock (I told him it was "Gator Rock", obviously)

This is another geographically astonishing area long lived in by the Yi people. For an area miles square, rocks jut up out of the earth (with corn and other crops planted around them), but in one place, they are concentrated and it is here they call the Major Stone Forest. A word to the horizontally endowed- prepare to get stuck like Pooh Bear in Rabbit's hole. I imagine the NAACP would have a fit. You can't be fat, or handicapped and see this place. Indeed, dubbed "Narrowest place" was so narrow you climb up sideways, bending and contorting to get around the rocks.

Dr. Natalie, sizing up her path through "Narrowest Place".

The Chinese spent much time seeing figures in the rocks and labeling them. Two Birds Feeding One Another, Embroidered Shoe, etc. But this one seems fairly obvious. This is Baby Elephant. (Momma Elephant is at another geo site in China, they got separated. There is probably a romantic story about it too. )

Sword Peak Pond.

The Chinese don't bother much with signs in these places. They just carve the characters right into the rocks, and then paint the characters a bright color. Because the writing is such beautiful pictographs, it adds somehow to the beauty of the natural creation. The only signs they have put up reflect more modern sensibilities like "no striding" or "no climbing". Of course, these, like traffic laws are merely suggestions. And the rock that the sign is attached to is often being climbed by one or more Chinese. In the photo of the Baby Elephant Rock above, you can see one such Chinese girl, perched on the rocks, quite close to a "no climbing" posting. Nothing furtive about it.
After a few hours of winding around the Stone Forest in the Chinese air (not to be confused with "fresh"), we piled back on to the bus to go back to the city. Tonight we ate at a "Hot pot". This is a Yunnan style of restaurant most familiar to us as a fondue restaurant. Only, in the Chinese version, the table has a hole in the center, in which they light a burner and put a large pot of broth down in the table to get boiling. When the broth is very hot, they dump a bunch of poisonous fungus into the broth. Really. Poisonous. Then they caution you to wait for it to boil for at least 10 minutes before you eat any. That 10 minute boil is to denature the toxins. Of course, the caution is in Chinese. I didn't ask how many tourists they lose a year. After they think it is safe enough to eat, a server comes in the room and ladles some fungus into your bowl. I got a large blob of fungus the size of a wet dishtowel and the consistency of mucous. Yum. Fortunately, my Huz quite liked it, so I picked stuff that looked more like mushrooms out of his bowl and let him attack the big loogie in mine. Also available for our consumption were a few dishes known only in Yunnan. One was a vegetable for which no one knew the name ( always suspicious in a restaurant that serves poisonous mushrooms) that tasted vinegary until the chilis hit, then you tasted nothing but hot. The other was pine needles. Smells like Christmas, tastes like a foot. And happily diving into it all is my Huz. What a guy. The rice at this meal was served as bamboo rice. The rice is stuffed down into the hollow center of the bamboo and steamed right in there. It has a sweetish mild flavour. The Chinese enjoy the process of eating. Picking frog meat off tiny bones, peeling layers of bamboo away to get to the edible part. Serving yourself one pickled lotus slice at a time. Ironically, Yunnan is one of the three provinces that makes its food very spicy, and the process of eradicating all tastebuds in a flaming flash is very fast.