Kunming

The first step of my planned vacation to Viet Nam was to travel to Kunming in order to meet up with Debra. The trip to Kunming was pretty uneventful.

I had arranged with the hostel in advance and went straight there when I arrived. I then checked my email and saw that Debra was due to arrive on the second. I planed to meet her at the train station due to it being a bit hard to find the bus to the hostel. Checking my watch, I confirmed that it was the first and I went to the deck to read.

A few hours I looked up and there was a most unexpected person; Debra, who was scowling at me. It turned out that I had forgotten to advance my watch at the end of the month. We then worked out our plan and Debra explained to me that she was short on expected funds.

We then set out for the Viet Namese Consulate. The fact that Kunming had a consulate was the main reason that we had chosen this city for our meeting. The consulate went smoothly; however, we did have to go get pictures and to surrender our passports for three days.

The next day we rented bicycles and went to the bus station in order to get our tickets to Hekou, on the border with Viet Nam. We also rode around and, other than a slight, previously mentioned, mishap had a good time.

We went to a street that caters to foreigners and found some pants I was looking for. I had come with only shorts and wanted some pants with zip off legs. Yes, they look silly; but, that makes it so I do not have to pack as much.

We went by wal-mart for some shirts (keep in mind, by Chinese standards, wal-mart stuff is high quality). Debra noticed that the wal-mart had no parking lot. Customers either arrived by bicycle or taxi. We also went to a Thai restaurant and had a very reasonably priced dinner. After this we returned to the hostel and returned the bikes.

The next day, after my visit to the hospital, I spent following the doctor's orders and resting. That evening we walked to an Indian food restaurant; it was a bit expensive, by Chinese standards, but very good. Debra purchased a couple of DVDs to watch.

We returned and Debra, again, noticed that there seem to be a disproportionate number of apple computes being used by travelers and we ruminated on this observed phenomena for a while.

The next day it was time to pack our bags to continue the trip to

Viet Nam. We went to the consulate to pick up our passports, complete with the new entrance visas, and went to the bus station.