Long table festival is one of the selling point for the developing of Yuanyang tourist industry. so...no matter what occation, we will have a Long table festival. just like yesterday, the 50th anniversary of the established of Honghe Prefecture. a chain of activities went on in the area. music shows, bon-fire overnight, huge car tour came and go, and of course...a visit to our magnetificient terrace scene. and yesterday they setup the long table scene in the only through fare street in town. guarded and blocked by police from both end of the street. The top end of the line seat [View Full Entry]

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This super-long foggy weather finally over yesterday. Through the miserable golden week holiday without much tourists, compared with what I heard from the news,"this year the number of tourist had been increased in Lijiang... Transportation in peak level...."seem like everywhere were blooming with tourism business except Yuanyang. I like it this way but on the other hand I was worry about our handicrafts in the center. With no customers, no sale, no work for the women in the villages, and this project has no future. Anyway...the town wasn't quiet as the locals business kept alive, by what? I [View Full Entry]

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Began to read my diary on my birthday, it was addictive as one of my friend had quoted it, even the diary was written by myself. Just couldn't stop it although it was well over 1am. Bloody amazing! Especially on your own birthday when you got nothing better to do. And also find out it no worsened than any other birthday for the last few years. Got myself more involved in the project than before. I always tried to be an observer from the outside, and urged the NGO to hired better people to run the project. But after 3 different [View Full Entry]

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Mid-Autumn festival today, this is one of the day that made me think about home and family, for Chinese, this day is for family together, that why bus load of people coming big from the city with their purchasing goods since yesterday. The town was pretty alive for last few days, moon-cakes flooded the market, but instead of the local made red paper wrapped cake, this year there was products from city to get a spoon from this business. the bakery in town waiting for this festival each year, no other thing inside their shop but moon cake, they could made [View Full Entry]

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16/9/07 Yiwu was one of the 6 important tea area in ancient China. More than 150 years ago Yiwu already the trading center for Puer tea, merchants came from every part of China to do business here, as it was the main body on the tea-horse trail. But since the Republic born, tea trading switched to more accessible area and Puer town bloom and came to the center of the business, together with the name, Puer tea is a lable, everyone knew its mean money if their tea could hooked on with Puer, so couple of years ago Yiwu began its [View Full Entry]

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14/9/07 Carried on to Mengla for the last area of my trip before heading back to yy. A long ride through many many gum tree, sugarcane,paddy field and traditional Dai houses. Once passed the town Mengxing you could spot the sight of the Blue Yao. Mengla is the last border town before Mohan into Laos. Surprised to see the bus timetable when I arrived. There was buses to Luangprabang, Phongsali and Namtha everyday, even a bus ran to Vientane every 2 day. Mengla is another simple 2 streets town, the area around the bus station offered the chance to see all [View Full Entry]

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11/9/07 After 2 long day traveling, bus bus bus. From Shuangjiang up more further to Lincang, then back down broke my trip in a friendly little town Jinggu, then I made my decision go all the way down to Menghai through Jinghong yesterday, almost done 1000km in 2 days Market in this area started pretty early, first bus to Gelanghe at 9:30am, got there before 12 and the market was already deserted , vendors packed and climbed into truck. Still I saw some Aini women with beautiful headdress, some still wore leg dress or shoulder bag. "Gelanghe is a small market"as [View Full Entry]

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6/9/07 The road was surprising good from Mengding to Cangyuan, drove through big mountain with thick forest into Wa region. Cangyuan is a pleasant little town with a huge market hall near the main town square that was overlooked by the 170 years old Guangyunmien temple nearby. A mixture of Dai style temple with Han architectural building. You could see the beautiful wood engraved works in the window pane, and the colourful ceiling tile painting. Today is market in Mengjiao about 15km away, with the rain last night, I thought I might able to just keep on sleeping, for I was [View Full Entry]

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4/9/07 "what are you doing here? ", "you come here alone? ", "why is your shoe so muddy? "... What! Is it a crime to travel alone? is it a crime to come to Yunnan? And is it a crime to got muddy shoe? That was the problem when travel in the border area in China, a lot of road block, check point. I didn't mind at all as it was their job. But I didn't like their attitude when questioning, they already put you as a drug dealer or a convicted criminal. "you live in Hk?" they will asked, then [View Full Entry]

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The last few day was spend on bus journey, and waiting for bus to showed up, then waiting for bus to move on, not much had been done. Mucheng was a little bit smaller then Zongshan but accommodation was better, and they offered something like licorice instead of tea in the guesthouse, the bitter-sweet taste was quite a refresh! The info about the market for Mucheng was wrong, so no market, local said only some old Lisu women still wore costume, the Yi had alread Han dressed. Not much fun in Mucheng, just like a local boy said"it's boring here"! The [View Full Entry]

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