Blogs from Yunnan, China, Asia - page 150

31/12/05 heard there will be long table festival in E-Zha area. but problem is no transportation go there. walk is the only option I guess. instead of go from the normal way from HuangCaoLeng, I pick the trail which start from HuangMaoLeng. so this morning I head there and it was market day as well, great... it made it easiler for me to ask for direction. a new route for me, plan was hike up to MuJiZhai and see where it will lead me. market in HuangCaoLeng started rather early, it was busy when I got there by half 9. been a long time since I visit this market. and I did notice there was a big casino hall inside the market place, which you can bet on Mark6. I saw many places like this in ... read more

Warning: Photos of dog meat in the Market on this web page. Day one: We started a hike on November 28th with a guide from Jinghong named Sarah. We hiked in the mountains above the Mekong River. We started our hike on a dirt road and everything looked very cultivated. All the mountainsides were farmed. We walked past footlong worms, butterflies,caterpillars and water buffalo. We stopped at a small village with 27 families in it. For awhile everyone stared at us. It was a Dai village. Our guide took us to a hut on stilts were we were going to eat dinner and sleep. After dinner we explored the village. Natalie made a baby cry by looking at it. Back at the hut, they rolled out futons for us to sleep on, but they didn't help ... read more

Today is Nov 21, Monday at noon. We are in Mengla 勐腊, Xixuangbanna 西双版纳. It is 2 hours north of Laos. On Nov 18 Friday morning, we left GuangNan 广南 and took two long distance buses (about 20 seaters). On trip we went from GuangNan 广南 to Yin Shan 砚山. Then, we took another bus to Kai Yuan 开远. We stayed one night in Kai Yuan. In Kai Yuan, we were almost refused accommodation in that particular guesthouse as they thought we were foreigners (with our big backpacks). Nothing special in Kai Yuan. Next day, on Nov 19 Saturday, we wanted to go to Jian Siu 建水 to visit the old town. Unfortunately, there is some kind of worker strike and the road may have been blocked. There is either no information or misinformation and so ... read more

We are back in GuangNan, Yunnan, at 7:30 pm on Nov 17. GuangNan is about 500 km east of Kunming, Yunnan. After this morning's journal entry, we boarded a mini-bus for Ba Mei, another Shangrila in Yunnan. This is the lesser known village, unlike the Shangrila in Zhongdian, Yunnan. The bus ride took about an hour, instead of two hours. One minority woman threw up all the way, and yet she has further to go, what a pity ! A lot of villagers in China are not used to automobile rides and therefore many buses offer plastic shoppers for those who get sick. We got off at Fa Li village and walked two kilometers of nicely stone paved road to the Ba Mei village. We paid admission of RMB$40. This admission fee included three bamboo raft ... read more

This is the first time on the trip we've actually scratched a destination from our itinerary. We're traveling in the southern part of China now which becomes very mountainous the more you go west and much of the attraction lies in the natural landscape. The one drawback to traversing the country like this is that you travel within geographic pockets and in one region, much of the terrain appears the same throughout. It would be like taking one big scenic trip through the vastlands of North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, all in succession. If it was your first stop, you'd be enthralled with North Dakota, next you'd appreciate Montana, but in the end you would hate Wyoming, b/c though it may be just as beautiful, it doesn't differ much from what you had seen before. So ... read more