A long time a travelin'

Right now I am in Kunming and yesterday Jason and I put a deposit on an apartment. Our almost two months of traveling has come to close… almost. Jason has his Fulbright meeting in Honk Kong next week but, while I am also going to Hong Kong, I am not going for his meeting. No, instead I am going to meet up with one friend who lives in Honk Kong and works for Disney and another that is flying into Hong Kong as a launching point to travel in China. We will be there for a few days and then the plan is as follows: Hunan => Sichuan => Back into Yunnan from the North through Dali and back to Kunming. My guess right now is that I will be back in Kunming around mid march, but that all may change.

Now on to what we have been up to. The last time I wrote, I was in Luang Prabang, Laos and I had been there for a few days. I spent another two days there biking and hiking around outside of the city as well as volunteering to teach English in the mornings. Also, my last day there I met up with a bunch of the folk from World teach and went with three of them (Rebecca, Lucie, and Karen) to a gorgeous waterfall. The water was refreshingly clean, beautifully blue-green, and although a bit cold it was wonderful to jump into from the top of one fall or off of a tree.

We arrived back just before five and I said my goodbyes and got into a half motorcycle half truck bed vehicle to be taken to the bus station. My bus was set to leave at 6:30 but did not depart until nearly eight. This was partly because the battery was dead and until one of the employees figured out just what they needed to get the old battery out and new one in was one of the station benches. The bus barely made it out of the station, but did make it into the middle of the road, before the driver killed it. Luckily it started right back up and the worst bus ride I have ever been on began.

I had plopped myself down in the back of the bus next to a window so I could lean on it to sleep and so I could cool myself down. This was great plan and one that I had used several times before but it was not meant to be. The bus stopped for dinner at a bit before midnight in a small town built around the road. There were two places with lights on: a convenience shop with soda and potato chips and a small restaurant with bowls of food sitting in a line on the front table. The contents of the bowls were as follows from left to right: something with chicken in it, something with beef in it, whole rats gutted and roasted with the teeth still in, something unrecognizable, and a steamer with rice. I chose to eat chicken because it was furthest away from the rats.

When I got back on the bus it was easy to see that we had picked up a few more passengers. By this I mean a few more passenger than there were seats for on the bus. This meant first that my seat had been taken and I had to go retrieve my sweater from under the man who had taken it. It also meant that there were already people getting comfortable in the aisle. My only lucky point of the night happened when I noticed that a Japanese tourist had been aggressively saving a seat next to him and he gave it willingly to me. He was very, very nice man in his mid twenties. We talked for an hour or so and decided to try to get some sleep.

At this point the bus had stopped a few more times and picked up more people, although none got off. The aisle, which was filthy, was full almost to the front of the bus but people were expected to either stand for the rest of the ride or sit on the floor. The guy next to me decided to sit on my armrest instead. If I was in his position I probably would have done the same, but that does not change the fact that now there was a guy sitting on my armrest and arm and leaning on my seat and me. This all got much better when the guy would fall asleep and fall over onto me only to wake up and start the course over again. This went on for the remainder of the ride, which I will define in a bit, and it was only interrupted when the guy would wake to take care of what motion sickness usually leads to into a rather small plastic bag. He was one of many that had the same reaction to the switch-backed and windy road.

My second bit of, what I have decided was luck, happened when the bus arrived two hours ahead of schedule. It pulled into the station as it had several times throughout the night and the driver yelled out “Luang Nam Tha”, my destination. I gathered up my things and was off the bus as quickly as I could. After retrieving my bag from underneath the bus I walked over to the station waiting area, sat down, and got out my travel book. The bus driver honked the horn and all of the ill people, who had gotten off to do the deed on the ground instead of into a bag, hurried back on and the bus was gone.

The reason why I had to decide whether or not getting off of that bus early was a stroke of luck was due to what I realized next. It was just barely after three in the morning. This would have been okay if I had any place to go to. I could have still gotten a decent night’s sleep and then gotten up the next morning and went on with my travels. The problem was that I did not have a place to go. I got a ride in the back of a truck into town with the others that had disembarked. Unfortunately none of them spoke English so I could not get my dilemma across. So I took off towards the nearest hostel. When I got there the front door was locked and no one was in sight. Often hostels will pay someone to work the night shift, which means they sleep until someone arrives in the middle of the night then they wake up, check the person(s) in and go back to sleep. Apparently this town is not this way because I went to 3 more hostels and was not able to wake anyone to let me in, if there even was someone to wake.

I set off to the only hotel in town only to find out that it was closed for the off season and would open again in March or so. By this point I was ready to just sit down and so I did. I found a well lit bench, sat down, pulled out some warm socks, my book, and some food, and began to read. At 5 the light above me went out and I moved to the front of a bank that had a 24 hour ATM, where I stayed until 6 o’clock when I went for breakfast.

Luang Nam Tha served as a base camp for a massive National Park that started in Laos and stretched into Yunnan, China. The park was well known for its natural landscapes as well as traditional tribes that lived within its borders. This is why I was here, but after my bus ride and early morning experience I was not sure. Over a hot cup of instant coffee I told myself, “I think I just want to go back to China” and so I did. I was on the first bus to Jinghong, Yunnan. Needless to say, I slept really well the following night.

I spent just one night in Jinghong and bought a ticket to Kunming on an overnight sleeper bus for the next night. I arrived at eight in the morning and reunited with Jason soon after. I think from this point on Jason covered most of what I would say so I will just sum up what I think were the most notable parts. Feel free to ask me to expand on any of the below.
- Walking on top of, around, and generally amongst rice terraces with our accidental guide near the town of Yuanyang. Then eating lunch with his family and hiking on to the next town.
- Taking a sleeper bus that was definitely made for people under 5’ for 15 hours.
- Riding bikes outside of Jinghong amongst rubber plantations and finding a spider the size of my hand. (its legs were as long as my fingers)
- Meeting up with a nice family in Menghan and drinking rice wine at lunch. Followed by watching a once annual Dai traditional celebration that is now performed daily for Chinese tourists.
- Eating a fabulous meal of roasted rosemary and mustard seed pork, potatoes, carrots, and onions served with amazing stir fry, squash and carrot soup, and mint juleps. This was for dinner to kick off the start of the Chinese New Year. We were in Kunming and Jason, Jono and I cooked it all ourselves. Afterward we drank baijiu while watching fireworks, lighting fireworks, and even sending off our own paper lanterns. We got home at about 5 in the morning.
- Drinking and eating for hours in the afternoon of each day we spent in Hanzhong. Hanzhong is the town nearest to where Song Li Long’s father’s family is from and Song Li Long was Jason’s roommate over the summer in Haerbin. The entire family was incredibly wonderful and all too generous with their food and baijiu. On one day we went straight from being toasted shots around 15 to 20 times at lunch with the family to a dinner with Li long’s father and friends where we did the same thing all over again. It was rough although quite an experience.
- Riding bikes one day and tandems the next in Yangshuo, Guanxi with Caitlin and Cicilia.
- The Wulingyuan (Zhangjiajie) Park in Northern Hunan. It is absolutely amazing.

Tomorrow I head for Hong Kong to meet up with Jessie and Tessa. Here are pictures of mainly just Laos.

Still alive. I promise.

I am still alive. I am also doig well minus some digestive tract issues that have cleared up. I will elaborate at some point in the near future.