Important Information

Location: Dali, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 4:24pm

Here in Dali, it is important you don't blow up your truck while in town.

Southern China

Location: Dali, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 16:02pm

After we walked across the China border, we waited in Mohan for 2 hours before the road was clear from the landslide. This is me waiting.



This is the Mekong River as it flows through the city of Jinghong in Yunnan province, southern China. We crossed this river from northern Thailand to get into Laos 3 days earlier.



When we tried to buy bus tickets to go from Jinghong to Kunming we found they were sold out. So we bought tickets for the next evening, and stayed in Jinghong an extra day, to check out the gardens.



This is the entrance to the garden. Also known as the 'wayin'.

Photos Through Laos

Location: Dali, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 15:41

So, this is the 'highway' through Laos, going north from the Thai border to Luang Namtha.



This is the Laos town where we stopped waiting for the river crossing that had washed out to be reconstructed. They dropped a couple of cement culverts in the river and piled dirt on top until we could drive across.



A shot of the village itself.



And this is me, sitting in our 'bus', writing.

Dali

Location: Dali, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 10:39am

Well, it has been a busy couple of days. We left Jinghong Friday evening, and travelled all night by sleeper bus. Don't take the seats at the back of a sleeper bus. There are not separate beds, just 5 bets, each about the width of my shoulders, and about 1.5 feet too short for me. I am not taller than everyone here, so other people must have the same problem.

So, we arrived in Kunming Saturday morning. With a little bit of effort, we figured out which of the five bus stations we had arrived at. We checked out luggage into the Left Luggage counter, and bought tickets for the bus in the evening going to Dali. Or so we thought.

Next, we started out wandering Kunming. We found a great vegetarian restaurant where they make everything look like meat. Of course it doesn't taste like meat, not even close, but it was tasty. We had fried asperigus with mushrooms (at least there were 3 or 4 mushroom slices on the plate), lemon 'chicken', and vegetarian dumplings. The dumplings were especially wonderful.

We lingered in the restaurant sipping tea and staring at the street one floor below us. Kunming has a big air contamination problem. Not so bad as Mexico City (which is a really beautiful place you should go to even with it's little problems), but not good.

Next we started looking for a book store I wanted to find. We walked up to the university area and wandered around until we found it. The university area of Kunming is very internation, with cafes and restaurants with many types of food, as well as many foreigners. Lots of postings for english teachers. If you want to teach english in China, fly into Kunming and start looking for postings.

We started walking back towards the bus station, but we were running out of time, so we caught a south bound bus on Beijing Lu. Luckily it stopped right in front of the train and bus station, so we hopped off, claimed out luggage and went to the bus station.

When we were in the bus station we finally noticed that our tickets were not for a sleeper bus, and did not go to Dali, but to Xiaguan, which is close to Dali. Apparently this happens to many people, and the guidebook warns to be careful, but we weren't careful enough.

At about 11:30pm we arrived in Xiaguan. There we caught a taxi to Dali, and managed to find a room for the night. A hot shower, and off to bed. I slept very well last night.

Now On the Streets

Location: Jinghong, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 12:27pm

Which brings us to today. We are here, in China. People are speaking Chinese, menus are written in some strange foreign language, people use the parks for exercising. It's all quite lovely.

You know, so far I've been in India, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and China. Only in China is it difficult to get along without speaking the local language. All those other places, English is spoken quite frequently. This place should be challenging.

Into China

Location: Jinghong, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 12:19pm

Yesterday morning we went to the bus station and got 2 tickets for the 'bus' to Borten (Boten in the guidebook). So, we hopped into the back of another pickup truck for another couple hours to Borten. This time the road was really nice though, paved highway all the way, except the places where the landslides had slide onto the road, or the spots where the road had just dropped off the hillside down into the river. However, those things must be quite common in Laos as our driver adeptly maneouvered around those trouble spots and we sped on our way, stopping only to let people off on the side of the road or pick people up who flagged us down.

The Laos-China border is the first border I've crossed where the border crossings are not in sight of each other. After punching out of Laos, and using the bathroom (traveller tip, always use the bathroom), we caught another pickup truck the 3km to the Chinese border crossing.

There we signed a form saying we were not infected with bird flu. That guy gave us a piece of paper to take away, but no one ever wanted to see the paper. Hmmm. Next stop, the immigration office where the guy lectured me about taking better care of my passport, because it had gotten all wet (I challenge him to keep anything dry during Song Kran).

After the lecture, we got stamped and we were done, in China. Cool. We wandered down the street in Mohan, in Yunnan province in southern China. Basking in the cool Chineseness of China. There was even Chinese writing.

Immediately across the border (like 3 inches across the dotted white line) we were accosted by Chinese women trying to buy our Laos kip (the currency in Laos is approximately 10000 kip to 1 CND). I'm sure they made a killing on us, but we got rid of the kip and got some useful yuan.

Then we wanted down the street, looking for a bus station. We didn't find a bus station, but we did find a corner with some vans parked. They seemed to be waiting. At the vans we talked to Adelino and Jose, two men from Portugal who were also waiting for a bus. They had been waiting all morning, because the road was washed out.

So, we settled down and played a little backgammon before the road was opened up 2 hours later. On to the next stop.

We got to the next town. There, with Adelino and Jose, we caught the bus through town to the other bus station in town and bought tickets to Jinghong, which is the next stop on our way to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province.

There was pavement almost all the way to Jinghong, winding through some fabulous mountains. The scenery in Laos and southern China is fabulous, beautiful mountains, deep valleys, lushious forests. All the way from the border to Jinghong the Chinese are doing road construction. There are the supports in place for new bridges, and new, wider roads are being constructed which straighten out the current roads.

We got to Jinghong at 9:30pm last night and went straight to a hotel in the guidebook. There, with the help of a phrase book we managed to get some rooms.

By 10:30pm we had managed to find a restaurant. I had some noodles with fried hamburger and corn.

Change of Venue

Location: Jinghong, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 11:44am

So, I've been in motion. We took an afternoon VIP bus (a converted van with 7 passenger seats) from Chiang Mai up to Chiang Khong. We stayed the night there, in a lovely little town, had a final Thai meal, watched National Treasure at the restaurant.

The next morning, with our Laos visas intact, we took a boat across the Mekong river, and we were in Laos.

There we met a German who was also going to Luang Namtha, which we believed was on the way to the Chinese border.

Since it is currently the rainy season in Laos, the regular buses were not going, however we found a 4x4 that was going. The next 9 hours we spent the the back of a bouncing Toyota pickup going over roads that were in some places hubcap deep in red mud. Laos has been trying to build a good highway from the Chinese border in the north to the Thai border in the south for over 20 years we were told. They have a little to go, as we covered a mere 190km in those 9 hours. Which included a 45 minute stop a few hours into the trip to wait while a new bridge was constructed over a river because the old one was washed out the night before.

We spent the night in Luang Namtha at a little Chinese guesthouse. There seems to be a lot of traveller/backpacker activity in Laos and quite a bit of English is spoken.

We had dinner with our German friend in a place called the Panda Cafe. The noodles they use in the soups and fried noodle dishes in Laos are the same as the ones they use in Nepal, yummy Mr. Noodle.

Doi Inthanon

Location: Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Local Time: Sunday, August 20, 2006

Hello loyal fans. I'm back.

We went for a motorcycle ride to Doi Inthanon yesterday, the highest point in Thailand. See me?



There I am, the at the second highest point in Thailand. (Obviously the highest point is on top of that sign, but I didn't climb up there.)

As it turns out, Doi Inthanon is the tail end of the Himalayas. But I've already been to the Himalayas, so no big thrill there.

On the way up the mountain we stopped at a wat (temple).



We had the red Honda CB 400 from Tony's Motorcycles in Chiang Mai, the CB 400 there which has the most comfortable seat. Unfortunately the big was in less than perfect condition. It started making rubbing noises on the way home. The right front calipers were sticking making the brake shoes push slightly against the disk all the time, and the chain had a good 2 inches of slack. That is why we have shaft drives. I am not looking forward to dealing with a chain drive bike when I get home. I've never yet owned one, but I believe all the bikes I'm currently interested in are chain drives. Darn it.

Quick run to the mall after we got back to sell Val's cell phone. Did you know the stores will buy your old cell phones here in Thailand? I think she got about half price. She bought it about 3 months ago.

Then, one last breakfast burrito at Art's Cafe. What a perfect combination of fried potatoes, eggs, cheese and onion, wrapped in a flour tortilla with a little salsa on the top. Awesome.

At 1 am I woke up and went out to Mike's Original, a little burger stand open until 3 am each morning. Their motto is, Converting Vegetarians since 1979. I can believe it. Those are possibly the best burgers I've ever had. I'm a big fan of the double mushroom and cheese burger, but for my last Mike's meal, I had a nice bacon and cheese. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it.

By the way, did I mention it, we're outta here. Leaving for Chiang Rai today. This should be my last posting from Chiang Mai. So, I say adios.

Busy, Busy

Location: Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Local Time: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - 5:11pm

Sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days, I've been a little busy. I took an accupressure workshop on the weekend, that turned out to be a waste of time. I should have known better. We learned 44 pressure points in 6 hours. At about the 5.5 hour mark, the teacher admitted he had studied 3 months to learn this many points, which basically means that trying to learn them in 6 hours is just a waste of time. But I do have a nifty certificate:



And I also got to see the rare egg shrub, which seems to be native to Thailand. Too bad this can't be grown in North America. Truly vegetarian eggs.