Dwarfs, Transformers & Banana Splits: Anthony Tao Gets Giddy in Kunming

I’m sitting in a bar/restaurant/café called Salvador’s in downtown Kunming when Jim, a friend who’s made this trip with me to the city of eternal spring, finds a small mountain of ice cream amid two bananas all slathered in chocolate sauce placed before his eyes. As I’m staring agog at this glob of gooey awesomeness, he looks at it and looks at me, looks at it and back at me, then looks at it again and lets out a hysteric chuckle, an expression of disbelief at his luck. So this is how banana splits are made in the south.

This would be a recurring theme of our trip: taking way too much delight in the most ordinary of things.

The locals I met in Kunming couldn’t understand why we were so giddy all the time. Green vines and cypresses, plum and pistache trees, shimmering lakes and pink-white blossoms are commonplace to them. They’re bathed year-round in sunshine and extended days (the sun sets an hour and a half later here, thanks to China’s lack of time zones). But we, had come from Beijing, where it was snowing. We had grown accustomed to drab coats and pollution and the Dante-esque agony of riding Line 1 during rush hour.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Beijing as much as the next expat, but sometimes we could all use a little change of pace. A little bit of R and R. A little solar glow, that panacea of all our ills.

Nothing about Kunming is really under the radar, but it’s more often a stopover than a destination, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Kunming offers all the comforts of a modern city, only cheaper and without the smog (though traffic is terrible and road signs often undecipherable… don’t even think about turning left. I was there on the weekend of March 6-7 for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and stayed a few extra days hanging out with locals to get the scoop.

If you’re there, seek out Wenlin Street next to Yunnan University (Yunda), where the young, chic and attractive hang. There is a heavy expat presence here, many of them teachers and NGO folk (Yunnan was among the first provinces to welcome international NGOs). Salvador’s (No. 76 Wenhua Xiang, Wenlin Jie) is the best place to wile away a day while sipping Yunnan coffee. As Stephanie Pfeiffer, an English teacher, put it, “The reason it’s the best bar is not just because it has the best drinks, but because it has the best coffee and the best food.”

At night, the doors and windows of Wenlin’s establishments are cast open to the clamor of youth, but the real nightclub scene is a bit farther south in the district of Kundu on Xinwen Lu. I made it there on Tuesday after my night got started at a Dai restaurant – instantly recognizable by its bamboo cross-hatchings – where we drank paojiu, which is basically baijiu marinated in fruit juices. The papaya paojiu I sampled was 40-plus percent but had none of the gag-inducing kick of its blanched cousin (in retrospect, the drinkability is probably a curse). Around Kundu, Chinese locals get their moves on at Soho Bar, Disco and other nightclubs that pulsate both inside and out. About a block away, a dance club popular with expats, Uprock (No. 267 Xichang Lu), features live DJs and an ever-changing lineup of music, with roof terraces that open on the weekends.

If you’re the type that must plan your sightseeing, then make a plan to see Optimus Prime, tucked just inside the northwest corner of Second Ring Road. A 40-foot (12.2-meter) likeness of the Transformers’ supreme leader overlooks an overpass, gazing out at nothing in particular. Built for apparently no reason whatsoever, it towers over several car dealerships and may be the most misplaced piece of Western kitsch in all of China. The paint is wearing off, rust is setting in, and a hole in Optimus’s right leg allows the adventurous to squeeze in and climb up. The statue in its current state is symbolic of something, but what that something is I’ll leave unsaid for now.

For something more on the beaten path, there’s charming Green Lake Park, the Yunnan Nationalities Village and the classy Dwarf Empire. You can walk along canals and previously buried watercourses. Around an ever-dwindling Old Town is the Bird and Flower Market, a series of street-side vendors, and nearby, behind a gigantic Bank of China, is a nondescript siheyuan restaurant called Laofangzi (No. 18-19 Jixiang Lane, Dong Feng Xi Road), which is a great place for a group meal.

If you bike around (a good way of seeing the city), you might find yourself at Dongfeng Square at the corner of Beijing Lu and Dongfeng East St., where large numbers of retirees congregate and watch each other sing opera lines. Doc Tobin, a writer who has lived in Kunming since November, noted, “They look like zombies, milling about from one circle to another.” This was after we got chatted up by a friendly, quick-to-smile zombie and surrounded by would-be brain-eaters who, it turned out, just wanted conversation.

And, finally, Kunming is known as a gateway city for good reason: you can launch expeditions to Sichuan, Tibet, India, Laos, Vietnam, et al., cycle to international borders or take daytrips to see rice terraces. For activities slightly closer to home, take an excursion to Stone Forest or relax at Dianchi Lake, the sixth largest freshwater lake in China.

Winter in Beijing may be almost over (knock on wood!), but it’s never too early to usher in the spring.

The train to Kunming takes close to 40 hours, with adult hard sleeper prices starting at RMB 539. A better option is flights on Elong.net, where roundtrip tickets in the “recommended deals” section sometimes start at RMB 1300 (before tax). Among the many hostels and hotels in Kunming, the most strategically placed is The Hump, located on a municipal gathering place called Jinma Square near the city center.