Today, Kunming is a massive commercial city, bustling with people and traffic, industry and shopping malls. It is hard to imagine its past; there is, however, one hostel here with an interesting name: "The Hump".
Friday, 13 June 2008
Kunming, Yunnan, China
The navy has always had odd names for parts of its ships. I served on one destroyer where the main passageway was called "Burma Road": it was the central area for 'storing' the ship with food and supplies. The original Burma Road was a 1000km wretched overland route used by the allies in WWII to supply Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese forces against the Japanese. The road stretched from the jungles of Burma to the mountains of China, terminating in the dusty backwater of Kunming. After the Japanese cut this line and occupied Burma, allied pilots had to fly in supplies, "crossing the hump" - a set of 5000m frontier peaks.
Today, Kunming is a massive commercial city, bustling with people and traffic, industry and shopping malls. It is hard to imagine its past; there is, however, one hostel here with an interesting name: "The Hump".
Today, Kunming is a massive commercial city, bustling with people and traffic, industry and shopping malls. It is hard to imagine its past; there is, however, one hostel here with an interesting name: "The Hump".
