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.