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Published: October 22nd 2009
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This year, 2009, marks the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This holiday is known as National Day and it is celebrated on October 1 each year. In addition to the elaborate banquets, huge sales at appliance stores and countless Chinese flags, to honor the day, the government gives the people a holiday from work and school. This year it was a longer holiday than usual because it was combined with China’s Mid-Autumn Festival, which usually warrants another separate long weekend. However, this year, they fell during the same week, so China had off from October 1-October 8. Yes, China had off. This means that almost every company that is not retail or food related is closed during this time. The government is definitely closed, as well as embassies and banks.
With this week of celebration comes one of the two opportunities that the majority of Chinese (and many foreigners living in China) have to travel out of the whole year. This means buses are packed, trains are booked, flights are pricey and hotels are jammed full of tourists. Yunnan is a particularly appealing destination for both domestic and foreign tourists and Kunming is the
hub of the province where almost every traveler passes through for a night on their way to more exotic destinations, such as Dali, Lijiang, Shangrila or Xishuangbanna. This was very apparent on the eve of October 1 when, while walking around the city, the population seemed to have tripled. It could have been that it was a holiday, so people who weren’t normally out and about, were out and about, but I think it was more than that.
Regardless, prior to the holiday, the awareness of the coming influx of people into this region was enough to deter me from venturing to these sought after “exotic” locations and instead had the happy opportunity to travel to Laos for the holiday!
I traveled by private car from Kunming to Luang Prabang on October 4 and returned October 11. My two travel companions who are French, including the owner/driver of the car, were heading to Laos for a visa run and I was able to tag along.
The road from Kunming to the China-Laos border (aside from a small approximately 30km stretch) was a shiny new superhighway weaving through rolling mountains of southern Yunnan. It had bridges, it had
tunnels, it had toll booths and it had rest stops. It was very smooth and our driver took advantage, far exceeding the 120km speed limit nearly the entire drive.
Once we hit the Laos border (it took us from 8 am until about 5:30 pm…right when the border was about to close…we cut it pretty close, but after a few minutes of back and forth with the Laos border patrol regarding a missing piece of paper that China supposedly forgot to give us to allow the car to drive in Laos, we were able to pass), and the roads immediately turned into what most of you might imagine the roads to be like in one of the poorest countries in the world. The road through Laos from the border to Luang Prabang was built 10 years ago and in some areas, seemed still under construction. Prior to that there were only dirt roads or trails through jungle. It consisted of extremely dusty mostly paved road filled with potholes the size of hippos and random piles of rubble from either mudslides or to be used for forthcoming repairs, not to mention livestock (I saw cows, buffalo, pigs, hens, donkeys), other
Walking in the Procession
As we danced down the streets, there music being made by drums, voices, fireworks and laughter. cars, buses, tractors, bicycles and people….lots and lots of people…I think all the people actually. Apparently, when the road was built the government moved villages from deep in the jungle to the roadside. This seems good for gaining access to goods, but seems terrible for safety. But perhaps that was just my point of view. From my point of view, we were taking a perfectly good new car and beating the crap out it. When we drove at night I felt like I was on the Indian Jones ride at Disneyland bouncing through the jungle in the dark and during the day I was in a rally car race speeding around buses on blind curves at 100km hugging the sides of mountains and never knowing how deep the drop-off was on the edge….the edge where people were walking. These people include children, very small children, sometimes even toddlers. Now, if the driver had been a boyfriend of mine or even someone I knew for more than say, a week…I would have been screaming and yelling to slow down and watch out for this or that the whole time (I would like to take this time to apologize to my previous
boyfriends who have experienced said screaming and yelling), but I didn’t really know this guy very well and he was an excellent driver, so I just held my tongue and enjoyed the thrill of a possible spectacular death. And as I am writing this now…all was good.
We reached Luang Prabang on a Monday when we found out that there was a festival that evening. It was a festival of lights to celebrate the end of the rainy season (I think…the tour books we had were in French and I could only pretend to read them). All the villages from the surrounding area each built a boat and lined them with candles, which, at night, were marched down the main street in a parade that the whole town participated in, including us. The boats were then set afloat in the Mekong River. Individuals could also sail little boats made of banana leaves (and Styrofoam) topped with candles, small money and incense. That night the Mekong glowed with tens of thousands of candles floating along with the current. And then there were the fireworks.
Individuals were setting off fireworks…all night long. These were small fireworks, like roman candles, spinning
Phousi Guesthouse
The very helpful and nice boy/guy helping to run my guesthouse was named after Christmas because he was born on Christmas day. flowers and firecrackers. They were not the relaxing oooohhh-ahhhhh kind. While pretty and entertaining, they were the OOWWW! F*&%!!!! kind when someone throws one at your feet so flames jump up and burn you leg….and when someone points a roman candle over the crowd towards the river, but it doesn’t quite make it to the river and nearly lights someone’s hair on fire…those kind. And the ones that are set off outside your guesthouse windows throughout the night that wake you up as if a bomb just exploded in the bathroom…
Needless to say, the festival was the highlight of the trip and it was a complete accident that we were there for it. The rest of the week can be summed up in really tasty food (of the Laos and Thai variety) accompanied by Beer Lao (my regional favorite), a gorgeous waterfall that had a swimming hole, a quick boat trip on the Mekong to see some caves, daily perusing of the most relaxed and quiet night market I’ve ever been to, really kind people and a decent amount of English-language movies in my sweet air conditioned guesthouse. I also ran into people who lived in Kunming who
I had never met and were there on holiday as well, including a couple who joined us for the car ride home.
All in all, it was a very relaxing vacation and after a week, I was ready to return to China to continue studying…uhhmmm…yeah, I didn’t crack my books the whole week. :-)
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Magoo
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beer - lao
Very good to see you had a good time in Laos ... I think you saw the best part of it. The guest houses there are surprisingly nice... Did not see you taking an elephant safari .... you should do that somewhere in thailand, laos or cambodia !!!