Abducted by lakes and mountains sacred

For: Juan Ignacio Sánchez (text and photos)

As are 1.200 million, and I just know I have three weeks to a residual percentage of its territory, anything you say about China has about the validity of what we say in Norway, where I've never been. But the truth is that these people left me baffled. We have been passing through the capital city of the area in which we move. The city called Kunming, and in the dream of nothing because you, more or less, the number 90 in population of the country. Well, as Kunming has four million citizens, or what is the same, the size of Madrid or Barcelona. And not much in it that goes behind these two.

The parks are huge. Buses have, at home, recorded voices inform you of the following stops and the time you have to wait. Libraries (nothing in Spanish and almost nothing in English) Fnac seem headquarters, and everywhere there are malls specializing in clothes ultramodern or computer technology, that Pyrrha. If you look up, skyscrapers lead you to think more about Dallas or Boston in a small Chinese city unpronounceable.

These people are not flirting with modernity, it has been brushed. Something else, and I refuse to get into debates gargantuan, is that this is the right direction. I read not know what magazine that the Chinese have become the world's leading importer of almost all, for example wine, to jamón. I believe it all, although the ham here do not know how to eat. And I miss the coffee, because these you drink more than the English.

But then, results that have been given such a hurry to go global, there are things that they left behind. For example, the toilet. The, rather, toilets. Here, as that of personal independence not care much, do not put walls or to shit. Literal. You walk into a bathroom and you find three Chinese congestionaos trying to shake out the trash pa. Ugly, is ugly.

And in some places, for example in hotels, you can visit a lobby that would have nothing to envy to one of those ugly posh Las Vegas, and then if you look at the room the walls are chipped and ground you can see the odd bug running very salao.

After Kunming we went to one of the most visited in China. Dali is called, as the great painter, and it's like suddenly getting far eastern emperors ago 500 years. Brutal, seems that no time had passed. The perimeter of the old city is surrounded by a wall with four gates that are in perfect condition. The small streets, cobbled. The stone buildings, topped with those characteristics pointed shapes of roofs.

On the way we found a sign saying that the first Chinese emperor entrusted his most loyal general who conquered Dali and added to the crown.

And, in the streets, dozens of stores almost everything. The best sweets, juiciest fruit, vegetables, vegetables ... and kebabs. You can eat in Dali quietly buying a beer and sitting down in a corner to enjoy a plate of patatas bravas (some vendors prepare a sauce very similar) and some kebabs. We have done, clear.

Dali is bounded on the east by a large sacred lake, and to the west by a mountain, also sacred. We've kicked. On the way we found a sign saying that the first Chinese emperor entrusted his most loyal general who conquered Dali and added to the crown. General Lee here, and stopped to sleep at an inn in the mountains before attacking. The next morning renounced war and returned to the family farm. Legend has it that the beauty of the mountain was so moved that he could not go through.

Then, another time, We rented some bikes and we went to tour the villages of Lake, they are also magnificent, with fishermen and water invading their homes, and small temples each occupied by a deity different from above. And we have been told there is an old tradition here of using certain birds to fish. Apparently the neck tie them, the birds were put down to eat the fish, and when and have them neck tightens the noose and take out the fish. The truth, I found a little wild, and I'm glad not to have seen, because in the end we have not found anyone ...

A secret: rent a room, for seven euros between the two, in a house that is unoccupied, so we actually have the whole house to us. And with a lounge and movies, and water for you, and fruit, and dazzling sun wakes up early ... we were going to stay a couple of days, and we're coming for six. And up. I have not been more comfortable on the whole trip. In the evening we go to a bar in a ultramodern China is involved with a Frenchman and sometimes play music perroflauta Local, and other Dylan prick, o a Sprinsteeng.
What agustito being here ... I'm not going.

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