I had the same thing in my house. I had a plumber come over and he diagnosed:
1 the toilet wasn't affixed properly to the floor
2 the toilet's pipe didn't properly cover the sewer drain
3 the silicon sealing was leaking
So for 90 RMB he took off the toilet, and I saw a huge pile of black smudge lying underneath it that was giving off a vile smell. He then proceeded to fiddle with the pipe and a wax ring that would make it connect to the sewer drain, bolted the toilet to the floor and then redid the silicon sealing.
The only smell that's left now is a weird dusty smell if I've left the windows closed for a day and whose origin I cannot locate.
Yunnan GDP third fastest-growing in China
发布者Peter99, stay off the drugs man. Indeed, a fast growing economy is not necessarily a healthy one (which is why countries sometimes try to put water on the fire). The article doesn't claim that it is, either. Of course, stable economic growth relies on small and medium-sized enterprises rather than on big business. But big business does contribute to the GDP, hence the impressive figures.
Getting a fast growing economy and high GDP only requires one thing: cheap resources. In Australia's case it's natural resources in the mines of WA, in China it's cheap labour and badly protected worker rights. So it's actually a symptom of the sickness of this country: the income gap, as Alien suggested above, is ever increasing and that's just a recipe for instability.
China's leaders are nicely putting their cash on Caribbean accounts (The Guardian today), for when this can of nitro-glycerine blows.
Myanmar to Tibet: Hiking the Dulong, part II
发布者Unfortunately we have not a lot of information on this walk; but there are people who do, such as A Luo (in Bingzhongluo). All we know is that you need to know the trails very well, that you'll have to camp or stay in shelters (no real villages) and we can estimate that it'll be a two to three-day walk.
Mountains are _very_ steep so if you end up on the wrong trail you may have to turn back unless you want to risk your life. It'd be an interesting thing to do if you have a tent, time and a GPS.
Yunnan's Stone Treasure: Shibao Mountain
发布者I'm with flengs on this one. I guided a tour group there last year. Even though I'd prepared, I was able to lead the way but not to explain beyond the very basics the worth and significance of these grottoes and treasures.
If you want to understand what it's all about, what the things you see mean, then you need a guide or at least a fair amount of insight in the history of Buddhism.
If you just want to see a bit of nature and snap pictures of some temples and relics you don't understand or don't care to understand: go ahead, you don't need a guide.
Changshui once again closed by fog
发布者I inquired a bit the last time I was held up by fog. It was a clear and bright day in Kunming. Turns out the fog was at my destination airport of - waitforit - Beijing. I inquired a bit further. Turns out 80% of Chinese airspace is reserved for military use. That means that when there's difficult weather conditions in those small corridors, planes have no way around it.
Myanmar to Tibet: Hiking the Dulong, part II
发布者We didn't see any live monkeys but for the one having a good time counting his legs near the Myanmar border (see part one). I think they're mostly shy outside of parks where tourists give them food or an opportunity to steal. Sneaking up the hills in the northern section, you may catch some snub-nosed monkeys.