Day 10: Lunch at Hotel Jin Jiang, Kunming

Day 10: 5th July 2011

We went back to our hotel in Kunming - Hotel Jin Jiang - after the Western Mountain Tour, where we decided to have lunch and then take a rest. When we told our guide we wished to go back to Kunming's downtown - she only told us how to go there by taxi - no extra effort to take us around as the guides we encountered in Lijiang, Dali and Shangrila. Even our driver, to pakdokter's reading were only interested in the 'tips' he was expecting from us. He was our driver when we first arrived and on the day we were to fly to Lijiang after 2 days in Kunming - we were repeatedly 'reminded' that his duty ended there and he may not be seeing us again when we come back from Dali as he may be assigned to other group. But after a 'generous' tip from us at the Kunming Airport that day - pakdokter was not surprised that he was there waiting for us with Ms Liu and he was apparently more friendly to us.

Pakdokter learnt and had some ideas about 'wages' in China from our guide , Mr Wang Da, the Tibetan, in Shangrila. Mr Wang Da at one time worked at the Banyan Tree Resort in Shangrila. Banyan Tree Resort belongs to a rich Singaporean hotelier. Mr Wang Da said he earned about 600 yuan a month as the head of the house-keeping team at this 6-star resort. After a year he resigned and became a free-lance tour guide. Even if his salary as a tour guide was the same - and but if he earned tips of 100 yuan a day as he earned from our group - to pakdokter's simple mathematics he could easily earn 3000 to 4000 yuans a month. When pakdokter complained to him about how difficult it was to get things done in Shangrila even in the 5-star hotel because no one spoke English - Mr Wang Da explained that the average salary of the staff in hotels is yuan 600. And because 95% of the tourists are domestic - there was no urgency for them to employ English-speaking staff. And those who can speak English would go for work that can help them earn more....

At the Chinese Restaurant of Hotel Jin Jiang ( not Jinjang...) we were again 'lost in translation'. But after 2 weeks we had also become 'wiser' and managed to get the waitress to come out with the dishes below.

a mushroom dish..

some cold salty-sweet fish dish that would

go well with teow chew porridge...

some cut chillies ala Malaysia...