As a result of the famine currently parching Yunnan last minute China travel deals, the tanks surrounding Kunming are becoming lower by the day. Those tanks provide most of Kunming's h2o and once they are vacant there is little chance of replenishment until rain starts, hopefully, in late May.

The specter of Kunming's faucets instantly running dry brings many images for those of us who live here. Particularly stomach-turning to a citizen of the Natural Pond area must be the thought of relying on the final source of h2o in the neighborhood: Natural Pond itself.

In fact, during a cleaner and simpler time in Kunming's record a huge number of citizens did get their h2o from Natural Pond.

GoKunming recently visited the two-room "History Art gallery of Kunming Water Supply". The museum China tour is inside present-day Natural Pond Park, and is located in the building that once injected 1,000 cubic metres of h2o daily from Natural Lake's spring-fed Nine Monster Pond and along a 9.5 distance network of public h2o pipes.

The pump station was completed in 1917 and started operating in 1918. It continued to be used until 1957.

The current museum still contains what appear to be the two original French-made electric h2o pumps, along with a small collection of old photos and other curios, such as China travel video wedding party that could be used to buy h2o from any of the more than 50 public h2o faucets that were part of the system.%%@af$ko&we*0511

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