We had a very good journey. We were taken to the station by one of our neighbours. We had to use two trains, both were late. But as we had taken this into account before nothing went wrong and we reached Schiphol airport in time. We picked up our bikes from the bagagestore and at 12 sharp we took into the skies. We slept well, I used 2 little pills to help. Exactly on schedule we landed after 12.05 hours at Kuala Lumpur. This might well be the cleanest airport I ever visited, spic and span. Three hours later we boarded our connecting flight, and found ourselves after 3.35 hours on schedule in Kunming. Again we were lucky, our compete luggage came first and we passed the customs immediately, and were met by our man from the transfer agency. This is, next to 2 hotelnights, the only thing we have booked before. Very handy, the introduction in the foreign country  becomes a lot easier this way. The hotel is ok, and after having installed ourselves in the room we went down to see the bikes. They came out of the boxes unharmed, quite a relief.
Our first impression of Kunming is very positive. We made a walk into the old part of the town, where we had a meal among the Chinese, who appear to be very kind people.The language will remain a problem, we guess. Hardly anybody speaks English, so hand and feet are used and it’s not at all easy. But they seem eager to help.

Kunming is a big city, many high rise buildings, offices and shops,with wide avenues, bordered with parks and trees, lots of flowerbeds. Everything is very well kept and very clean. (Does cheap labour make clean cities?) We passed over a large pedestrian area, with bronze statues and terraces of bars and small restaurants, all very neat. And many people parading the streets in an agreeable atmosphere.

Tomorrow we’ll make a bike-tour in the surroundings and the day after tomorrow we’ll travel west by express bus to Dali. There the real tour will start