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we arrive here with no map, and what we thought were clear instructions to reach the hotel we had heard about at mei mei's, but soon find that is not the case. even though we know the place we are looking for is not very far, we let a cyclo driver take us as he is insistent in a pleasant and endearing way. it is maybe a 1 minute ride, but he helps us check in and tries to be as helpful as he can, hoping to get a little bit more of our money. he is harmless enough, and a nice break from the aggressive tactics we have come to be used to in china, and although it is business, he reads his customers well. we wander the small town a bit, figure out our bus to laos for the next morning, and manage to find some food i can eat! stephen stays up all night as we have an early start the next morning, i catch a couple of hours of sleep.
as expected, our friendly tout is at the bus station early in the AM, hoping to make some money changing currency for the 'gui lou' here for the bus to laos. he manages to sell some to a young man we end up befriending later, but we get on the bus before getting the chance to evaluate the situation. we are leaving china today, after almost 3 months here, and although stephen is a bit sad to leave, i am looking forward to being somewhere different for a little bit. not sure what to expect of south east asia though, but we will be back to not only china, but specifically yunnan in the spring. until we meet again.
jinghong is very different, it is warm and very green here. we arrive early in the morning after what turns out to be a very nice sleeper bus ride (relatively speaking!). it is dawn when we approach the city, and i have caught brief glimpses of a really nice skyline from my vantage point in my bed. a looming shape intrigues me, and it turns out to be a suspension bridge, nicely framed in the early morning light. wide, tree lined streets take us in to the city, and we arrive at the bus station at 6amish. we make our way to the hotel we have booked (a recommendation from angela when we bumped into her in yuangyang), but we are too early to check in, and spend close to three hours sitting in the lobby waiting for our room. it is a small town, very relaxed, so different from the rest of china so far. it is often described as a bit of south east asia in yunnan for those touring china without the time to go south. we finally check in, unwind, unpack and rest for a bit. stephen wanders next door to the infamous mei mei's café for breakfeast and to get the low down on the many adventure options just out of town which draw visitors to this region. for the moment, it is nice to be in a warmer climate for a bit, and we are both looking forward to the start of our adventures along the mekong, although stephen is not looking forward to the warmer weather! we wander the city in the late afternoon to check out another hotel option, then make our way to the mekong to catch sunset at the suspension bridge. we spend an hour here easily, snapping photos, crossing over and back on the bridge. we wander back for dinner, and to our hotel, which we have decided to stay at. finding food for me has been easy here so far, everything is a short walk away, communication is easy (unfortunately because it is in english, not because our mandarin is improving!). we chill out in our room, will decide what to do here tomorrow.
xishaubanna is a popular area in yunnan province because of the subtropical climate, but also because of the many different minority villages in the surrounding area. jinghong is the central point from which to organize and undertake trips to the local villages, and is what most of the cafés here offer in terms of tours. we've done a bit of comparing, and have narrowed it down to either a hiking tour with sara from forest café, or a mini van tour with mei mei's. we'd rather do the former, but the later fits our budget a bit better, especially if we find others to go with. for now, we decide on a short walking tour and go out for the afternoon to walk along the mekong. it is really hot here, and the path wanders away from the river sooner then we expected, so after a bit of slow meandering we decide to head back towards the town and our hotel. on our way, we spot manting park, and decide to go in and wander for a bit. we find some shade, sit and play cards, enjoying a snack and a break from the heat. it is the 31st today, and it strikes us now that neither one of us has ever been outside of canada on new year's eve! what a juxtaposition to the usual weather and surroundings we would find ourselves in! after a short stroll around the grounds, we make our way back to our hotel and decide to spend new year's eve next door at mei mei's. it is full of foreigner's, we grab the last table, have a nice meal and stephen orders drinks. we don't end up talking with anyone else really, and at midnight, one guy stands up at another table and says 'happy new year'. shortly after, some fireworks go off nearby, but we can't see them. in all, a very low key new year's eve. it has been a nice day though, and an interesting way to ring in 2009. before we call it a night, we decide to leave a note at mei mei's looking for people to do a tour with on the 2nd, and head back to our hotel. we will be skyping with family and friends tomorrow, and look forward to the hellos.
we spend most of january 1st chatting with family overseas (and in china!), catching up on emails, and relaxing. don't remember going out for lunch, but stephen has a picture of me, so i guess we did! on our way to dinner, the woman from mei mei's stops us to tell us another couple has payed to do the tour we were looking at, and if we want to join them, it leaves at 8am the next morning. we tell her we will join them, (despite the early start!). that' pretty much our day, i guess a pretty normal laidback new year's day!
we make it downstairs this morning just in time, the van for the tour is about to pull away when we catch a passenger's eye and flag it down. inside are charlie and machiko, a couple living in shen zen here for a weekend holiday. conversation is struck up very quickly and we are all glad to have hooked up for the day. the days itinerary, a dai temple, a local market, an aini village, a hani village then lunch. after our time at the temple, we stop for the market, and as i am on guard now, i realize very quickly that this is not the place for me. machiko, charlie and stephen all decide that they don't mind skipping it either, so we head out early to the villages. our first stop, some wandering, an invitation into a home, it turns out from other tourists visiting with the locals! some polite 'no thank yous' to the offers of food and rice wine, a visit to another house, then we are all on our way. the next village is less eventful, with even less interaction, and after some slow wandering, and a glimpse of the mating ritual of turkeys, we make our way back to the van and go for lunch. a nice meal, then a change of plans for the afternoon. we stray from the itinerary, and decide instead to go to a nearby botanical garden in menglun. the remainder of the afternoon is spent here before undertaking the hour or so drive back to jinghong. charlie and machiko have decided to do another tour the following day, and invite us to join them. undecided, we let them know we will email them later with our decision. we decide not to go, but suggest meeting up for dinner the following night when they get back. we have much to do, as we are about to prepare to go to laos, and really it was the company more then the tour that made us consider going in the first place.
our last day in jinghong, soon to be our last day in china until the spring. we were hoping to catch up on the blog, some emails, pack, get ready for our onward travels, but we don't get much done before heading out to meet charlie and machiko for dinner. we enjoy a nice meal at a thai restaurant, then say our goodbyes and head back to our hotel. tomorrow we leave for mengla, then the day after, laos. jinghong didn't really make a strong impression on either one of us. we enjoyed the company and people we met, the town and sights nice enough, but it is definetely not the most engaging place we have visited so far. it was nice to relax and have some slow, low key days though, and the beginning of our transition from our time in china into laos.
the kunming bus station. round three.
our third departure from the kunming bus station, a sleeper bus to jinghong. should we encounter the guy again trying to get money for our 'excess, heavy' backpacks, we've decided we'll speak french and just pretend to not understand him at all when he speaks to us in english. of course he is not there this time, so we don't have to deal with him. he's lucky, we were ready for him and his money making shinanigans. but then, our bus driver decides to give us an extremely hard time about bringing our 'small' packs on the bus with us. they have our laptops and cameras, etc in them and in no way are they going in the under storage or anywhere away from my body. after much non-communicative arguing with him and another fellow with him, he was not going to let us take them on. after a while, we think, he thinks we're going to leave them in the aisles, which are already narrow on a sleeper bus, so we tell him by hand gesturing (hugging our packs) that we'll hold them in our bunks with us. the bunks are tiny, there's barely enough room for us, let alone, us with our backpacks but we always seem to manage on previous buses. after he understands what we are trying to tell him, he nods in frustrated agreement and motions that we can bring them on. phew! we were ready to not board the bus and skip going that evening. after all that, the driver was really chilled the whole way, the ride was pleasant, and our bags always crammed with us on our beds, wrapped by our legs, where they were not in the way of the other passengers.
btw: after speaking with another traveler later on, we discovered that the guy at the bus station apparently speaks really good french as well. haha! but we did hear that he got arrested and hopefully he won't be harassing any other foreign travelers any more. stay tuned....
