The ride to Zhongdian was beautiful and we got our first taste of Tibet as we neared the city. Apparently the Chinese have decided that Shangri-la is a much better (for tourism) name than Zhongdian, so that's how it's usually referred to now. We were dropped off adjacent to the old town and made our way to the gh recommended by Mama Naxi's. It turned out to be a bit of a dump, unfortunately, so we went down the street to a nicer place. Our first order of business was to get our visas extended. It took forever to find [View Full Entry]

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We set off early from Mama Naxi's for Qiaotou. The drive took our packed minibus through some gorgeous scenery. We stopped at a lookout where there were fantastic views of high peaks in the distance. We arrived at the small town of Qiaotou and stopped to buy our entrance tickets for the gorge. We had heard from other travelers that you could present any form of id and get the student discount. I showed them my CO drivers license and sure enough it worked. After picking up our tickets we drove a bit further and then we were let out [View Full Entry]

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The bus to Lijiang took us through some spectacular scenery and gave us our first glimpse of the mountains of western Yunnan. When we arrived at the bus station, we called Mama Naxi's (pronounced Nah'Shi) guest house and they agreed to send someone to get us. We made our way through the modern Chinese city and then into the old town. We were led down some small streets to the guest house, which was tucked down an alley. About five minutes after moving into our room we were hustled off around the corner to dinner at another of "Mama's" guest houses. [View Full Entry]

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Well, after a rather long bus ride through the Chinese countryside we found ourselves in Dali. Sort of. Apparently, there is an old Dali and a new Dali. The bus dropped us in new Dali and so we had to find our way to the old town several kilometers away. Luckily for us, the LP explains just how to do that. Except that the bus station on it's map is no longer there. We ended up walking for about 30 minutes before giving up and hopping in a cab. Of course, after about two minutes the cab drove by the bus [View Full Entry]

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So, I have some big news to report. Jen (previously mentioned in the Vang Vieng and Vientiane entries) and I are now together. We really hit it off on our return to Vientiane and we decided to be more than just travel partners. It's been six weeks now, and things are going great. I'm way behind on my blog entries (can you guess why?) so I'm going to condense a few weeks into one entry. Our first destination after leaving Vientiane was Bangkok, although we stopped for a night in the <cough> lovely <cough> border town of Nong Khai. We stayed [View Full Entry]

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The morning I left to go back to the farm Jen and I had a discussion about Tibet. Jen expressed quite a bit of interest in seeing Tibet as well, so we decided that Jen would think about it a bit more and then we'd talk in a few days. I caught the bus to Vang Vieng after saying goodbye to Jen and the Kiwis (Nick, Rochelle, and Jimmy). I thought seriously about flying back to China, but I decided to go overland instead. I've been negligent in my blog updating so I've forgotten some of the specifics from the farm, [View Full Entry]

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Vientiane feels tiny (maybe because it is, at only 200K inhabitants). I've seen it described as a collection of villages, and I think that description is quite fitting. The traffic is light. The skies are blue. People smile when you say "sabaidee". The tuk-tuk drivers recline on hammocks in their vehicles. And finally, you can walk everywhere! This is my kind of capital city. I ended up catching the bus to Vientiane with Martina, who was also staying at the farm. Our plan was to meet up with some of the gang who had already arrived in Vientiane, and so we [View Full Entry]

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I knew we had finally arrived in Vang Vieng when I started to see restaurants with pillows on the floor and Friends reruns on the tv. Every description of VV I've heard mentions those Friends reruns, and sure enough they're still popular. Some of the restaurants are also showing Family Guy and The Simpsons these days, but Friends is king. The bus dumped us along the roadside in the middle of town. There were more falang (that's foreigners) on the streets than Lao people. In fact, I'd venture that there might be more falang in VV than even Luang Prabang, but [View Full Entry]

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In my last entry I mentioned that I caught a bus to Luang Prabang (LPB). I think a "grossly overloaded minivan" is probably a better description of the vehicle. When I arrived at the bus station it was already full and I was wondering where I was going to sit. Worry not, someone soon turned up to toss a young Lao woman into the already full backseat. It's ok, she was smaller than me ;). My newly vacated seat was a fold-down contraption that placed me next to the middle row of seats. I've seen these seats before. They're designed to [View Full Entry]

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My journey, or perhaps ordeal is a better term, to Laos began with a ten hour bus ride to the provincial city of Jinghong in southern Yunnan. Much of this first leg was on brand-new Chinese superhighways. Eventually, however, we reached the end of the finished freeway and were forced onto a two-lane highway that alternated between tarmac and dirt. Often I could see the under-construction freeway nearby. It looks like they'll have this freeway all the way to Laos in the very near future. It's amazing how they don't bother to thread the road around the topography. In this mountainous [View Full Entry]

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