Big Losses

This Friday was a major day for travel. Having decided I would visit the historical city of Lijiang, I left for the airport as soon as we were done with classes. Well, almost. I first stopped by the dining hall for lunch, and afterwards finished packing in my room. I only packed a backpack (and, of course, took my camera bag along with me), as I figured I would not need much to keep me alive and relatively clean until I returned on Sunday.

To get to the airport, I originally intended to figure out how to use Didi, a rideshare mobile application that is basically the Chinese equivalent of Lift. But when I asked my class’s teaching assistants for help, Cao Laoshi pointed out that it would be much cheaper to use a bus that leaves for the airport not too far away from school. My first adventure of the day, therefore, was navigating to Nanjiang hotel. The walk itself took a quarter of an hour, which I can say with certainty because I was timing the whole ordeal. I figured that if I timed myself, I would have a clearer idea whether I could get to the airport in time for my earlier flight to Shangri-La in two weeks, or whether I will need a taxi.

After spending ten minutes lost in the general area where the bus station was supposed to be, I concluded that the people sitting on the curb with luggage must be fellow passengers. And indeed, I soon found that crouching behind a nearby police box was a makeshift desk with a very official looking lady behind it selling tickets. The bus came not long after I had bought mine.

To get to my title though: I entitled this entry “Big Losses” because as I left the bus, I forgot my umbrella, which is the only piece of Yale merchandise I had brought to China. Perhaps for that reason, it made me quite sad, though that emotion is quite absurd considering I have lost maybe four Yale umbrellas (and three umbrellas I brought from home) over the course of my college career. 

I can’t remember how long the ride itself took – an hour is how long it is supposed to be – but I remember I got to the airport with much time to spare. Even if my flight were at three o’clock, which is when my flight to Shangri-La is supposed to leave in two weeks, I would still have made it without much cause for nervousness. As it happens, my flight to Lijiang was not at three but at half past six. I kept myself busy by writing an essay for class about why young Americans don’t find marriage appealing. And by looking for an umbrella. I ended up buying one that turned out to be obscenely large, so I am quite looking forward to the time I inevitably lose it and get to buy a new one. The sixty yuan I spent was another Big Loss – a lot of money, but, as I have already said, it did purchase a very large surface area of watertight material.

My early arrival came in very handy, though, as I encountered a peculiar problem trying to check in for my flight. Apparently, my passport number was not on my ticket and apparently, one is not permitted to fly without one’s passport number on one’s ticket. What ensued was a rather entertaining phone call with China Eastern Airlines, during which I had to explain that I would not be able to send them an email about the situation, as my email address does not work in China.

(Admittedly, this was somewhat of a lie, as Gmail works with a VPN, but I was not about to test the good graces of Kunming airport by trying to set it up).

All ended well, though, which led to the third Big Loss: that of my spray deodorant. I have gotten away with transporting a can of deodorant in my hand luggage before, so I thought I would risk it again this time, taking an almost empty can with me and leaving the full spare in my room. What I did not realise, however, was the hard work and dedication of the Kunming airport staff, who also patted me down in the truly most thorough fashion I have ever experienced. They now stand a chance to beat the international hospital in Kunming for the organisation most well acquainted with my body.

To give myself a little respite, I ate some very overpriced noodles before I boarded my flight, an event which was accompanied by a big thunderstorm. Not too comforting was the surprised “ohhh!” the flight attendant uttered in response to a particularly loud crash. As I was consequently walking down the wet stairs to the airport bus, I discovered that my so-called hiking shoes were really rather useless when it came to wet surfaces – the prompt of this discovery was me splaying across the staircase to the great displeasure of my right knee.

Nonetheless, the flight was very smooth, and I had the pleasure of spending it next to a physics professor at Beijing University, who came to Kunming for a conference and was now taking some time to travel with her colleagues. Her thick Beijing accent was somewhat easier to decode than the southern accent of her acquaintance, at whom I smiled and nodded.

I arrived in Lijiang at around eight, and very self-assuredly headed straight for the airport busses. I checked with the man selling tickets that the busses were indeed going to downtown Lijiang, after which I boarded the first bus I saw. My self-assurance was somewhat undermined when two busses departed before mine did, as was my confidence that they were all heading in the same direction. Yet there were too many people in the bus by then for me to slip out without injuring my pride, so I stayed cemented in my seat as the bus headed off to the unknown.

The first minutes were the tensest. Glued to my phone, I was watching whether the bus was heading north as it was supposed to or, well, anywhere else. Fortunately for me, it was heading north, which meant that at worst, I would have to get a taxi on the spot (but I would not have to ride the bus back to the airport and set off again from there).

Well, the bus did arrive in Lijiang, but as it steadily veered eastwards away from the centre, I grew increasingly worried. When a local asked the bus driver to stop, I used the opportunity to hop off the bus – much to the apparent shock of the driver and several fellow passengers – and headed back in the direction we had just come from. Luckily, I was only about half an hour from my hotel, and it was a very scenic half an hour, for separating me from my hotel were the cobblestone streets of old Lijiang.

 Night in Lijiang take 1

 Night in Lijiang take 2

Night in Lijiang take 3