Considering I am writing this from one of the deepest river gorges in the world where wifi/service isn’t exactly a priority, I’m hoping I will be excused for submitting this in late. It is currently golden week here in China which means that essentially everyone has a break and travels either home or to popular destinations. For this reason, we also have a break and a week to conduct a “Yunnan Exploration Project” which basically entails a week of planning your own travels and destinations, including transportation and hotels/hostels/whatever in order to better understand Yunnan’s diversity. We were encouraged to travel by ourselves or at small group, however a max of four in a group was imposed. I chose to travel by myself and chose to go on a multiple day hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge, hence the lack of wifi or access to internet. I’m writing this on the third day of my hike, and I’m essentially finished with it. I will stay one more night on the mountain (because this has proven to be my favorite place on Earth) at a last guesthouse before continuing on to my next destination, which is as of yet undecided. I’m hoping to ask some locals at the next guesthouse for recommendations of places to go, preferably not too touristy in order to avoid to golden week upcharge and swarms of foreigners.
Overall, studying abroad with SIT has been a constant surprise. Our only formal class is a Chinese language one, other than that all other lectures are given by local professionals at relevant locations. For example we talked about food safety and sustainability at an organic farm on the outskirts of Kunming and visited a local hospital in order to talk about women’s health issues. Every week so far has had an average of about 3-4 field trips and I’m seeing more of Yunnan than ever thought I would.
We’re required to arrive back in Kunming by the afternoon of the 6th, and then the next day begins our urban homestay. No one really knows what to expect, up until this point SIT has enjoyed surprising us, luckily all good surprises so I’m not worried.