A second market

While the first market was a covered market, this second one is an open market. It had just rained overnight and the whole place is muddy. The first sight was the huge trucks of potatoes. Potatoes doesn't feature very prominently in Han Chinese cooking. It is considered food to stave off hunger and eaten mostly by the minorities. That was why I was very surprised to see the large amounts of potatoes. It is the same with maize or corn, Han Chinese cooking uses a little of it but here where most of China's minorities live, it is a main part of their diet.

Horses came from Tibet years and years ago with the Tea Horse caravan. I've never heard of this till I came here. Years ago black tea from Yunnan would be hauled overland through the mountains to Tibet where the Tibetans uses a lot of Chinese Black tea in their diet, in their Tsampa Yak butter tea. In exchange, these same traders brought back horses from Tibet. Tourists can still visit and do part of this Tea Horse caravan route much like the Silk Route.

I was told this is lime or limestone.

This looks like a typical frontier town. We are close to the Vietnam/Burma border.

I wasn't sure if this was a huge bak choy but I think it was a huge napa cabbage.

This is the owner of that huge thing. He was laughing as I took a picture of his cabbage. I love these people, they never minded when I took their pictures. They just smiled for the camera.

Most of them were smallholders, selling their excess produce.

Besides using charcoal, some vendors use this gas can. I think this guy is popping corn. I heard an explosion and my taxi driver told it was just the gas can blowing up. He said it in a nonchalant tone like it happens all the time. I thought, maybe, it's terrorism.

I forgot what these were, I sampled it, it's kind of sweet and sour.

Fresh river eels. One wonders how you eat these creatures, considering they are so small and bony. I've tasted them at a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles. They have a way of removing the bony spine and have the whole thing butterflied and cooked and you wouldn't even recognise them as eels. They were delicious.

River fish, river eels and garden snails, what a gastronomic delight.

Tamarinds.

Lychees

Charcoal

Pumpkins.

What a day it was and it wasn't any way drawing to a close. After this market I would go back to Kunming, go to an old temple and then a city park. Both experiences would be just as exhilarating.