Forums > Living in Kunming > Cycling in Kunming Actually, I'm riding a pretty expensive bike that I more than often leave outside for over a year (locked, yes, but not necessarily always to something). My lock is *very* good though (comes with a warranty: if it breaks I get 500 euro from Abus). I don't know whether it's the luck, the lock or the scratches on my frame, but no one ever seems to have made an attempt at stealing it.
I think shiny frames and shitty locks are a bigger reason for bike theft. I will of course change my mind if mine gets stolen.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? And of course to get drunk on cocktails at expensive places like Salvador's, and eat Western food. Seriously, don't pretend as if all teachers are such poor creatures fighting the machine. Most of them are here on an adventure and if they bothered to do the effort (which most do, don't get me wrong), they can easily find the good deals too.
That said if you make the same salary here as in Europe, you are bloody well off. If they're not happy with the different life standard, if everything should be easy and fair, there's always Europe to work in. My god, such nagging.
Enough discussion now, we're obviously not going to agree.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? Not if I were a teacher. I have a different job but if I were working for Yunnanese employers, I would be happy with 1500 EUR a month, since after food, rent and excessive drinking I would still be saving over 1000 EUR per month. That's more than any of my friends in Belgium can say.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? As for the pay, you live in a place where qualified university students work office jobs for fat companies 6 days a week, 10 hours a day for as little as 5000 RMB a month. Kunming is very affordable so 100-120 per hour is actually a very good wage, making you 2600-3120 per week = up to 12480 RMB a month. That's 1560 EUR a month. You know what a beginning foreign-language teacher makes in a country where rent is four times as high as Kuming's? Right: 1500 EUR. Reference: Belgium.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? The times that media were absolutely non-sensational have died with consumerism.
Besides, I don't agree with you. It's just true what they write. Even before reading this article, I had the impression that the majority of the people teaching English here are one or more of the following:
* not native
* not qualified
* not even suited
* working illegally on a student visa
Some of the native speakers' spelling is simply bad. Yet they teach.
The only ones to be trusted without testing or quizzing are the ones that have pocketed a TEFL diploma. Such people need not fear since they can rebuke any sneers by fishing out their diplomas.
Everyone else needs to be screened thoroughly. But as often in China (and elsewhere), schools only care about money, parents only want to spend as little as possible, so you get a layer of rotten teachers. It'll take time to root them out.
Getting Away: Vang Vieng
发布者With regards to the roads, I have some first-hand experience, riding a bike in February 2012. Luang Prabang to Phou Khoun and Vang Vieng on highway 13 is pretty smooth sailing, until the last 15-20k before VV, where you suddenly get intermittent road-wide gravel gaps (at least one every 500m) until, well over 100km past VV, you reach the junction to Thalat, where you can opt for the much better maintained highway 10 to Vientiane.
Here is "highway 13", on one of its longer street-wide gravel gaps (imagine the dust):
www.crazyguyonabike.com/[...]
Kunming road beautification project initiated
发布者Less dirty buses and other vehicles you mean. And more terraces on the sidewalks, along with more balconies!
Kunming Fair again sets records
发布者It was also a great place to spend some time. Especially the Middle-Eastern section, where bearded patriarchs in expensive-looking garments showed their tapestries and jewels. Yes, it's all in a sterile modern building now, but I almost felt like in an Indian bazaar: with a little fantasy, the walls melt away, the scent of incense fills the air, camels lazily circle above the white roofs and fakirs test their arses.
A lot of the goods sold there were also fake (not real Jade, a different kind of Eaglewood). But the owners were mostly honest about it (though not everywhere, I learned from someone who worked there as a translator).
I went home with a couple of coins from Bhutan and an invitation to the country and a set of funny photos.
The fair moves on to Chengdu and Beijing after that. There it'll be free, because business with the locals is generally better, according to some salesman whose Chinese translator was surprised that I bought the 30 RMB ticket "just to look around".
Getting away: Haba Snow Mountain
发布者Ah okay :) I must've been lucky or the guards must've remembered me after exiting first.
I understand that you haven't made it to the top? I did this last year: getting to 5396m was a pretty sweet experience, but it would probably be unwise to do this without a guide. Especially if you've never been hypoxic on a mountain before (I hadn't).
Photos and story on www.crazyguyonabike.com/[...]
Getting away: Haba Snow Mountain
发布者If by bike, coming in from the East side of TLG will probably cost you nothing. I haven't ever been checked on that end despite my multiple entries and exits.