Spend the first few days of Chinese New Year in Mengzi area, as Mengzi is close to many of the Miao Caihuashan festival's ground. Beside...Newyear day in Mengzi was busy, many shops kept open for business, and the area around Nanhu lake had turned into s free dancing ground for the Yi people, vendors market their space on the street by the lake couple days before Newyear eve. it was crowded of people on the 1st and 2nd day of Newyear. standard fraternization of different ethnics show, and evening fire-work, no surprise at all! still...better than quiet and all shops closed without any restaurant serving! The 3rd day marked the beginning of the Miao Caihuashan festival, but the weather also made a 179 degree changing....turned cloudy and windy, the sudden switched in climate caused teeth quaking! ... read more

Another hit and run festival. Although I didn't except anything from this, came to Jiangcheng just because I wanted to spend some time away from Yuanyang, escaped from the mist and cold. I couldn't find any background info about this Hani festival, only mentioned that the Linianjie Festival is a traditional feast of the Hani in Qushui area, and its main event was prepare a long banquet in the street, even the local couldn't tell much, only said it is different as Hani Newyear is normally on the Lunar October. but then later I heard people mentioned there will be a series of this festival in Mengla and Banna area within the next 10 days, perhaps it really a traditional event. Usually there would be Hani from Laos and Vietnam attending as well. But people said ... read more

"Things always happened for a reason"...I always trying to play thing out this way. like this broken wrist incident...perhaps something just want to stop me from being too aggressively visit everything in Yunnan, its wanted me to slow down, its didn't want me to leave Yunnan too quick I guess, as you can see in what pace I roaming through this part of China in the last 2 years, if I kept on like this, pretty soon there will be nothing left for me to cover. so....I felt better and just wait out for my wrist to recover, but it was slow due to my age...not a young fellow anymore! Then again I developed a kind of routine to help me get pass each day....wake up.... breakfast... morning 30 minutes walking exercise.... a round in local ... read more

The Achang Huijie Festival also happened on this same period, I wish I could cut myself into 2 half so I can made the 150km journey to Husa for the festival! Thought I need to made peace with it then! I spend another day in Mangshi to see the immense Kaimenjie of the Dai people, it was in every Dai village, I was greedy as you all know! I went to Fengping hoping to catch some early action, nothing happened...local gave me another version..."in the afternoon" they all said, not the same the other told me last week that it will happen on the temple ground in midday! so...I made my way back half way into a village hidden behind the main road where they are famous for its silk weave fabric, said many women still ... read more

Mangshi is the capital town of Luxi County, with an airport offered a quick entry point into Dehong Prefecture. The town spread wide on the flat valley with a small hill on the southeast end where stood the huge Dajinta Pagoda. Beside Han, the area live mostly Dai and Deang, couple of temples hidden inside the local living quarter offered a quiet hideout during the day, also a good place for meal as there are plenty of Dai homestyle restaurants scattered around the area. Sapi is the local speciality sneak(dish) in Dehong region, you could find it anywhere within the Prefecture. Sapi is a cold dish served with rice noodle and meat from different part of a buffalo, on the side it came with the sauce max from minced beef and liver paste with different spicies. ... read more