Homeless 77 – A Story About Kunming

Last week I posted a photo on my Instagram about the fact that we were mildly homeless for a night. Here’s what happened…

Jordan and I went on vacation to the Yunnan Province with a few of our teachers. Our grand scheme was that we would visit the Yuanyang rice terraces. You may recall that our trip to the rice terraces in Guilin was a massive failure, and we were unable to see them. This time, knowing that we needed to make specific arrangements to see them, we bought a hostel on the Yuanyang rice terraces. The hostel looked beautiful, but lacked specific information of how to get there. Naively, we assumed that the hostel would be easy enough to find, so we booked the hostel and the flight. Two days before leaving, we learned that the route to our hostel involved taking a six-hour bus to a village, where we would then take another bus for an hour, and then would take a taxi to the hostel. Still, we remained optimistic that we would be able to find a bus to take us from the Kunming airport to the hostel. It turned out that our blind optimism was not enough to get us there.

We landed in Kunming around 8 p.m. Upon landing, we saw that one of our fellow passengers was wearing a jersey that said, “Homeless 77.” We all laughed hysterically that this Chinese man was wearing such an absurd jersey. Little did we know, that “Homeless 77” was a foreshadowing of the coming events.

The six of us walked through the airport, trying to find a help desk, service desk, or travel desk. We were open to any kind of help. We were laughed out of one of the tourism departments, after showing them where we wanted to go. I suppose we should have taken this as a bad sign, but we persevered. After that office, we found a taxi driver to take us to the bus station, where we could buy our tickets to the terraces. The driver initially asked for an absurd amount of money, so we bartered with him, settling on 150 ¥. When we reached the driver’s car, he changed his mind, and raised the price to 200 ¥. The driver argued with us over a voice translation app, which didn’t properly translate anything he said. Finally, we accepted defeat, agreeing upon 200 ¥, and got in his van.

As we neared the bus station, he started arguing with us that we needed accommodation. We told him that we didn’t need accommodation, because we would take a bus to the terraces. He then laughed, explaining that the bus station was closed for the night, and the next bus wouldn’t leave until the morning, and that we wouldn’t arrive until the next evening. This news jarred us, but we still told him that we didn’t need him to set up accommodations. The last thing we wanted was for the slimy taxi driver to know where we were sleeping, and to make us pay more money. The group of us got out of the van, and started walking to the bus station. Our primary goal was to get away from the taxi driver. As is typical in China, the driver jumped out of his car, gathered his other taxi buddies and surrounded us. Naturally, we started to panic. All of the drivers started fighting to take us to different places, shouting out different prices. We didn’t trust any of them to take us, so we pushed out of the circle, and ran down the street.

Once we were out of plain sight from the aggressive drivers, we realized that we needed to regroup. A quick look around the block showed a hotel next to the bus station. The hotel looked like it was about the quality of a “pay-by-the-hour” motel, but we were desperate. Of course, the worker said there was no room, and kicked us out. In an attempt to make the best of the situation, we walked next door to a café. We were promptly kicked out of the café, because they were closing. As we stepped onto the street, we saw that everything around us was closed. Accepting defeat, we sat down on some marble steps in front of a bakery, in order to find a place to stay. A quick search showed us that there were no available hostels or hotels in Kunming. As such, we realized that we might be forced to sleep on those marble steps.

As we sat on our “marble palace,” we started contemplating life. How exactly did we get to this point? I had never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be sleeping on the sidewalk in a bad part of town in China, of all places. It was at this point; that we realized “Homeless 77” was a foreshadowing of our time in Kunming. I accepted that we would be taking shifts for sleeping and watching the baggage.

It was at this point in our adventure that we had to make some tough decisions. Did we want to give up a second time on seeing the rice terraces, and stay in Kunming instead? Did we want to take a flight back to Guangzhou? Did we want to try finding the hostel? All of these decisions came with consequences. If we decided to keep our plans, we would sleep on the sidewalk, then take a bus in the morning, hoping to find our hostel. We also had to consider the difficulty of returning to the airport on time if we proceeded to the rice terraces. If we took a flight back to Guangzhou, we would have wasted our time and money, ending up back at home. The final option, of staying in Kunming was equally difficult. We had a vague idea of what to do in the city, but we weren't clear on what that entailed. We also were in the tough position of not having a place to stay. Our searches on Hostelworld.com came up with nothing. The search for nearby hotels was also coming up with nothing. We were stumped. Eventually, the group decided to give up on the Yuanyang Rice Terraces, and to stay in Kunming. We still were faced with the issue that we didn't have a place to sleep, other than the "marble palace." 

After hours had passed sitting at the “marble palace,” we decided to look on Airbnb for a place to stay. Miraculously, we found a place! More time passed as we waited to get confirmation of the apartment, as well as directions, but the prospect of sleeping indoors was enough to keep our spirits up.

Once we knew where we were going, we convinced one of the scary taxi drivers to take us there. The backseats were wet with a mysterious fluid. I didn’t have a seat, and instead had to sit on a three-legged stool that wobbled with every turn of the car. When we first talked to the driver, he was watching a soap opera on his phone. The driver continued to watch his soap opera as he drove us to the Airbnb. Very safe.

The Airbnb owner told us to show the address to a security guard, and they would show us the way up. The first security guard sent us down an alley. The second guard sent us back the opposite way. A shop owner sent us in a completely different direction. We were lost, and at this point, a bit delirious as well. Finally, a very nice restaurant employee helped us, taking us all the way up to the apartment.

The apartment was cute, clean, and safe. Although it was very cold in the apartment, we were able to sleep in clean beds, off of the street. We stayed at this apartment for the remainder of our adventure in Kunming and it ended up being very centrally located and in a great part of town.  

Although getting there was a crazy adventure, our time in Kunming was fantastic. It wasn’t what we had originally planned, but it still was amazing. We accidentally lived the quote by Lao Tzu, "A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."  We will have more stories to follow soon, stay tuned!