User profile: bluppfisk

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Forums > Living in Kunming > 1 Yuan Bill - Interesting!

It's always the same: "The communist party is evil, read the books of the Falungong". They're printed on anything from 1 to 10 yuan notes. Not seen them on 20 or 50 or 100 yet.

Sell them on eBay, pretty sensible!

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Laocai, Vietnam Intel

== Anybody got any tips on anything fun to do in Laocai other than eat Pho and stare at the river? Any recommended local restaurants? Hotel or guesthouse recommendations?

I stayed at "The Nest" which is fairly priced and just across from the bus and train station on the main square. Has most going on until late(r) of all the city. 200k VND for a night, clean, nothing special, bit noisy though from the street.

If you have the Nest on your right side, keep walking away with your back to the CN border, on your right side after passing a quite stretch of road, there will be a Bia Hoi place with decent snacks, ask for nem chua and the crispy bread and some spicy sauce to go with your bia hoi, and chat some with the locals. Quite fun.

You can also just try and hang with some of the many foreigners in Lao Cai (travellers), but not everyone seems to have the same need for English-language contact as someone who's stayed in China for a long time.

== Also, does anybody know of a reputable place there that rents motorcycles? Can one legally ride in Vietnam on either an American or Chinese moto license?

Anywhere and everywhere, for about 4-6 USD for the small Honda kind (up to 150 cc). You cannot legally drive in Vietnam unless you have a Vietnamese driving licence. That means that if you cause an accident, you're properly fucked and you can only resort to bribing the cops and trying not to get lynched. I've seen seriously bad things so be really careful.

== Also, where do buses to Sapa leave from, with what frequency and at what cost?

Main square has many buses and it's so touristy you'll be offered many options, including minivans. Don't know the cost because I always rode my bike.

== Anyplace else in the general vicinity that's cool to check out besides Sapa?

Yes, Bac Ha, on the other side of the red river and about just as far up the hill, is a much much much nicer place to visit than Sapa. Less touristy, at least with international tourism. So the hawkers bother the Vietnamese but not you so much. Still, English is generally spoken by restaurant and hotel owners so you'll get by. The market is much cooler. Fuck Sapa really.

Yen Bai (halfway to Hanoi already) is also a pleasant rural city.

Ha Giang is probably my favourite place in all of northern Vietnam. Access to incredible mountains, but already quite far from Lao Cai.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > FTP problem

VPN on StealthVPN (or equal) mode on a server that supports port forwarding

and/or

FTP in passive and plain FTP (unencrypted) mode. That works for me.

But it's really a bitch.

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Comments

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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/[...]

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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".

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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/[...]

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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.

Reviews

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First and last experience. Absolutely horrible. I came in late with a big flesh wound. The doctor sewed it up and told me to come back in the morning "perhaps to redo it, and to change the bandage". When I did come back the next morning, they just changed the bandage and sent me off.

When I peeked at my own wound, I noticed it was horribly done. "Like a vet did the stitches," as someone commented. I then had to stay a night in a different hospital in order to do it right, with a 40% chance of getting infections. This cost me a lot more, thanks to Richland fucking up in the beginning.

Whatever X-rays were taken were not printed out and given to me so I couldn't go to another hospital for a second opinion or treatment.

The nurses didn't seem to know where half the things were and the doctors had to repeat orders to get basic things like scissors.

In the next hospital, it was noticed that I had fractured my jaw in two places. On the five X-Rays taken at Richland, they did not notice the fractures.

Pretty sure these people are not actual doctors and are therefore criminal.

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Super place. Really cool interior, lots of good beers and drinks, fun toilet inside the telephone booth, and an interesting clientele.

Cons: pretty hard to find, no matching glasses for the imported beers, and home brews need some work.

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Teaching and support lamentable.

Four people signed up for the highest-level class and got a teacher who does all the talking, refers to herself as 老师 and makes classes absolutely uninteresting. As of this moment, only 1 person is still going on a regular basis.

While staff is friendly, they are absolutely incapable to help out with visa matters in an adequate way. Lack of information beforehand, lack of support and lack of information during the visa process meant that I am waiting forever for my residence permit to be processed, without any information about why it's taking so long, why they can't get started ... I'd say this school is a good option if all you wanted is a visa, but they can't even handle this properly.

Anyone giving this school a 5-star rating hasn't been to any decently-run schools in Kunming, such as Keats'. The only redeeming quality is facilities and space, those are indeed excellent.

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Have been studying at Keats for almost four semesters now and I'm very enthusiastic about the quality of the teachers and the commitment of the school's staff.

One point of criticism is that I think they could put in some effort to group people of the same level together, rather than base it on who was together in last semester's class.

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I stayed here in the early days of March 2013. Dave and his wife are swell owners, the staff attentive, the food good, rooms in perfect order, WiFi fast enough... Much like the old hump, the entire place is an excellent place to relax and make friends. And that is what you come to do in Dali, after all. The location is a bit isolated from the old town, but nothing is really far away in Dali. Besides, it makes for a better starting point to walk up Cangshan.