Unfortunately nothing exciting to write about for the holidays. I got back from my trek 2 days ago. Yesterday I took it easy, catching up on my journal, blog and Project Noah. I met a nice British couple and we went out for dinner last night at a place that I found a few days ago. It’s just a small place but has tons of different dishes of food. So it’s easy to just point at what you want and it all goes with a big bowl of rice. For the three of us to eat rice and about 7 little dishes was not even $2! After that we wandered around the night market on a closed section of road. Some very interesting stuff there. Since we are so close to Myanmar, there is a lot of Jade being sold from there. I actually bought a small piece of Jade there 2 years ago and have been wearing as my necklace ever since. My last necklace was a piece of blown glass from my first independent trip ever to Australia in 1998. I wore that same necklace until I bought the jade piece 2 years ago. I thought it was time for a change but wanted something different and unique.

Today for Christmas I just hung around the hostel most of the day, still fighting this cold but I think it’s on the way out. I’m going out for dinner with a Chinese girl that works at the hostel and then to a movie. Nothing special but it should be a fun night anyway.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

My next destination is the Yuangyang rice terraces. They are supposed to be one of the most amazing sights in the province, if it’s not too foggy!

Comments (2) Dec 25 2011

It was still very cold in the morning. I finally got up at 9 and ate some bread for breakfast. We packed up and left at 10. We hiked back into the forest. We passed by a 1900 year old Tea tree, the oldest and largest in China. It was about 10m high and had 4 trunks about a metre thick in total. It’s a big draw for local and foreign visitors to the village. After the tea tree, the well established trail got skinnier and was not well maintained. We were in a forest reserve now which meant the area can not be used for plantations but could still be hunted. It was a very beautiful and lush forest. We hiked through for a couple hours before we finally reached the road. Ainipa called a taxi friend and within 10 minutes he was there to pick us up. Our trek was over and I enjoyed it. It wasn’t quite as wild as I hoped but we did do something really different. Ainipa had never taken a visitor on a trek like this or slept in plantations. It’s too rough for most, he said. I have always seen this little huts whenever I see a plantation and it was cool to actually get to sleep in one. The huts from the first night actually had electricity too! I was ready to get back to the city though.  I had been fighting a vicious cold the whole trek, coughing up and blowing out a lot of phlegm. It was really rough and gross because chickens actually ate the phlegm I spit out!

I was ready to relax for a few days and eat some fruit and try to get better. We stopped for a decent lunch on the way back. We got back to Jinghong around 4.30. I paid Ainipa and thanked him. He had a group to meet the next day. I washed all my clothes in the hostel’s washing machine for $1. I didn’t feel like looking for dinner so I just ate some barbecued meat on a skewer and yogurt and orange juice for dinner. I was grateful to sleep in a soft bed in a warm room again.

Comments (0) Dec 25 2011

No one gets up too early at this time of year because it is still dark and cold at 7am. We got up about 9 and had breakfast. It was noodles and hard boiled eggs for a change. We packed up and left about 9.45am. We had a long 6 hour trek ahead of us to the next village. The trail followed a ridge most of the way. There was a lot of tough uphill but also a lot of flat sections. The trail is mostly used by hunters. We were not in a nature preserve during any part of our trek so far. There were plenty of hunters around and we saw no mammals at all. We saw tracks of wild pig and deer and that was it. It was really sad that there wasn’t much left in this area. It was quite a big forest and able to support more life. We were only about 3km from the border with Myanmar now and in quite a wild area.

The trail was at about 2000m and went through some beautiful forest. I saw impatiens and begonias, also a cool stinkhorn fungus. I also spotted some interesting plants that I believe were parasitic. Will have to do more research when I get home. We stopped for lunch around 12 and ate sticky rice, bread and an orange. After lunch long parts of the trail were out in the open and a tall weed was crowding out most of the trail. I didn’t care for these parts of the trail, it wasn’t nice forest.

Ainipa has been pretty accurate with his times and we reached a tea plantation exactly 6 hours later. Though the village was still another 40 minutes away, Ainipa had suggested that if I wished, we could sleep in a hut in the tea plantation and avoid going to the village, since it is not on our way tomorrow. This sounded like an interesting option to me as I told him I wanted to avoid villages. This village, he said, was 200 families and quite large and noisy, nothing like the quiet village we stayed in last night. I got settled in our tiny hut surrounded by tea and Ainipa walked to the village to get us some dinner. I took a bucket shower from a small spring in the forest behind our hut. It was dark in our hut and already only 12C at 6pm. I sat in the sun and read until it set. Ainipa came back with nice dinner of rice, eggs and fish. He cut some banana leaves to sleep on. I was so grateful I brought my thermarest to sleep on.

I braved the cold again after dinner and stargazed. It was another brilliant sky. I saw 5 shooting stars, 3 of them at the same time! I was watching the sky when I saw one and thought ‘ Oh cool!’. Then all of a sudden another appeared quickly and then another which lasted a few seconds. It was all amazing and I thought it was time to call it a night after that. Again I had to put on my sock, longjohns and a longsleeve shirt this time to sleep. We sealed up the hut as best we could as it had no door and the wind was blowing outside. I was borderline warm but slept okay. Thankfully the temperature hung around 12C as it was at 6pm and only dropped 2 more degrees during the night.

Comments (0) Dec 25 2011

We were woken up by the family next door at 8am because breakfast was ready. It was basically the same as what we had for dinner. The man of the house was already into the corn liqour! Ainipa had heard about some hot springs nearby and it sounded like something cool to check out. Ainipa got the directions but tried to take a bit of a shortcut. We got a bit lost but eventually found our way. The family told us there were 30 minutes away but it took us almost 2 hours to reach them. The hotsprings turned out to be a huge bust unfortunately. They were very small and shallow. The were right next to a cold water stream and only spread about 5m in distance. They were however, extremely hot! I tried to find a balance with the hot water and the cold water with my feet but couldn’t do it. They were either cold or burning. With a lot of work and moving some stuff around the site has some potential but its not much in its natural state. Oh well, we took the road back to our hut and had lunch there.

We walked back to the tropical rainforest area and explored a little while. We went back to our hut and packed up our stuff. We had a 2 hour uphill hike to the next village where we would sleep. We took some steep shortcuts on a trail and avoided the longer switchbacks of the road and it still took us 1.5 hours to reach the village. The village was spread out over a slope. It wasn’t that large and to my surprise, there were hardly any people around. There were a lot of domestic animals around and shit everywhere though!

Ainipa took us to a house where he knew an old couple lived. It was a fairly large house for the two of them and there would be plenty of room for us. They cook inside the windowless home and it was super smoky when we arrived. It was too much for me and I asked if I could sleep on the large covered porch. This was no problem and I set up my stuff here. Just 2 years ago, electricity and hot water came to this village. Only two homes have hot water and Ainipa and I went to one of them and took a nice hot shower.

Ainipa cooked most of our dinner which was rice, eggs and some veggies. There was one small dry dish of hot peppers, soy bean and some wild bird all crushed together. It was tasty but extremely spicy and more used as a condiment that just eating it plain. After I set up my bed and was just lying down to test it, the old man came out and throw off my blanket over my legs. He then pushed up my pantleg and began to apply some local plant remedy/massage oil. I was quite surprised and asked Ainipa in the home what he was doing. Did he want something for this or just being nice? In the end he never asked for anything. He put the liquid on my legs and roughly massaged them for a minute and then put some other oil on my feet. It was a bit rough but did feel okay, though I’m not sure if it helped or not.

The sky was clear again and totally full of stars! It was amazing! I put on my winter coat and lied down on the porch to stargaze for a while. As I said, nights have been around 10 -12C and my sleeping bag is only rated to about 18 – 20C. I’ve been sleeping with my socks and longjohns (thermal underwear) on and using my winter coat as an extra blanket on my upper body. I put a t shirt over my head and face and I have been warm. Tonight though, the couple had some blankets we could use. Just one blanket over my sleeping bag kept me warm and I was able to sleep in just my boxer shorts, the way I prefer to sleep.

The couple was in their seventies and very tiny and weathered. They had lived in the village all their life. The woman’s earlobes had been stretched and hung low. They were part of the Bulang, an ethnic minority of 90,000 in China with others in Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The woman chewed betel nut and her mouth and teeth were a gross black color. She kind of scared me actually. She didn’t hang around much while we ate but when she came around she would take in this whisper voice, kind of like a demon or something in a horror movie. She freaked me out! The man was super friendly though and of course shared his corn alcohol with me. I had one shot before dinner. He offered me another after dinner, I tried to refuse but since he knew I drank, I pretty had to drink it. Ainipa doesn’t smoke or drink so he gets no pressure from the villagers. Needless to say I slept warm on the outside and the  inside this night!

Comments (0) Dec 25 2011

I met Ainipa at 8.30 and we went for a breakfast of rice porridge and dumplings. We took a small bus to the village of Menghai about an hour away. Since the area we were going was more off the beaten path for trekking, we had to hire our own taxi to take us there. After 2.5 hours driving in the taxi on twisty mountain roads, we reached a small village. We had a lunch here of sticky rice, a bit of meat and some oranges. Then we descened a trail into a valley. It was warm and sunny out. The forest was nothing amazing here but as we got nearer the bottom of the valley the forest transformed into a stunning tropical rainforest.

We stopped at a little concrete hut in a small sunny clearing. There were plenty of birds, insects and a few huge spiders around. We stayed here for a while as I tried to photograph all the insects. We then headed up and out of the forest into a banana and rubber tree plantation. We would be spending the night here. Ainipa found a family he knew. We were still far from any village but there are scattered simple bamboo huts throughout the plantation that families stay in when they are working.

There was a mother, father and son staying in this hut. I didn’t think there would be much room for us so I asked if there was another hut. They said they had another unoccupied one just down the dirt road. It was a bit smaller but it was perfect for just Ainipa and I. We settled in there and then went to the river to wash up.

We had dinner with the family, which consisted of rice, soup and some veggies. The man of the house offered me cigarettes and alcohol and the son offered me a beer. I was fighting a cold and didn’t feel like a warm beer and I don’t smoke cigarettes. I accepted his offer of the local corn liquor though. It was strong stuff at 40% but not too bad. It cooled off in the evening to about 12C but was calm and the sky was absolutely brillant! So clear and so many stars!

Comments (0) Dec 24 2011

I took a taxi to the bus station way outside of town in Kunming. As soon as I stepped out of the taxi there was a guy there and he says ‘Jinghong’. Why yes, that is where I’m going. He leads me to the ticket counter and I buy a ticket and then he leads me to the bus. It’s a large and nice bus and it leaves in 10 minutes. It was an 8 – 10 hour trip to Jinghong. It was on more of a new road and very smooth and fairly straight. They showed movies but all in Chinese. We stopped for lunch half way and arrived in Jinghong at 6pm, exactly 8 hours after leaving Kunming. I put away my winter coat and longsleeve shirt. It was about 25C in Jinghong! Yes, I was finally warm!

I took a taxi to Many Trees Hostel and got my own room. I just ate some noodles down the street and relaxed. The next day I went out for a big breakfast at Banna Cafe, one of the few traveler cafes in town. Trekking in the area is the main draw for Jinghong and that was why I came. I asked around at the traveler cafes about trekking possibilities.  I spoke with a French guy at Mekong cafe. He said he had no groups going trekking but I told him I was more interested in a custom tour. He knew the guide to call. The guide, Ainipa, said he could meet me at the cafe at 6pm.

I walked back to the hostel and got my camera and walked to the Botanical Garden in town. I spent a few hours walking around there. It was fairly big but not too much stuff in flower. I saw some cool butterflies though and a caterpillar. I made it back to Mekong just at 6 and Ainipa was there.

I told him I was more interested in nature than visiting ethnic minorities and villages, the main focus of trekking here. He knew an area near the border with Myanmar that would be a mix of forest and plantations. We might have to stay with a village one night but that was fine. He said 4 days would be enough time for the trek he had in mind. It all sounded good to me and we arranged to meet at 8.30am the next day.

I bought some snacks for the trip and organized my gear. I would be bringing my large backpack but it would be mostly empty. I was excited to do my first trek of this trip. It had been a little while since I’ve been in nature, so was looking forward to it.

Comments (0) Dec 24 2011

Dec 15

The overnight bus to Kunming leaves at 4pm. It is a 12 hour journey. The bus was my first sleeper bus in China. It had 2 aisles, with 3 rows of beds, stacked 2 high. There were about 36 beds in total. The bus was fairly empty but we picked up some more on the way but it was still half empty for the journey. The road was mountainous and very windy for the first half, making it hard to sleep. It got very cold too. They provided a warm blanket but they would still smoke and open the window. The road finally straightened out and I could sleep a little. The bed is so tiny, I just barely fit and I’m not a huge guy!

We arrived in Kunming at 4am. It was strange though, no one was getting off the bus. Only 2 people. I wasn’t sure if we were in Kunming or not.I finally figured out we were and took a taxi to the Cloudland Hostel. I got the top bunk in a 4 bed dorm and crashed. I later learned from a Chinese girl that the bus company lets the people sleep on the bus until it gets light and the day gets started.

I got up about 10 and had breakfast. I chatted with some travelers and just spent the day relaxing at the hostel. I thought Kunming would have been warmer but it was only about 10C outside or less and 14C in the hostel. They said it was a cold winter this season. The hostel was very cool. Good food, plenty of places to chill out and a TV and extensive DVD library. I usually spent my nights watching a flick.

I met Cindy ( her english name), a Chinese girl who was in Kunming looking for job opportunities.  We got to chatting and went out for some delicious Thai food. The next day was sunny and about 17C and I wanted to get out and do something. Cindy kind of knows the city so her and I walked to Green Lake park, a huge park in the middle of the city. It’s a great place for people watching.

Since Kunming wasn’t providing the warmth I was looking for, I headed further south to Jinghong, near the border with Laos.

Comments (0) Dec 24 2011

Dec 14.

As soon as I arrived at the lake, it started to snow! Just light flurries but it was so cold that it was staying on the ground. I tried to walk out to the lake, because according to the guide there are ‘beautiful hiking trails around much of the lake’. I couldn’t find these. Instead the lake seemed to be in the distance surrounded by agricultural land that was split up by many small canals that were too wide to cross. I always had to turn back and try and find another way. I did see some birds. Someone finally showed me to a small flock of Black-necked Cranes, a very rare bird and the most famous of the lake. It was cool to see them.

Eventually I took an hour long canoe trip out on the lake. The older woman steered the canoe with a long bamboo pole as much of the lake is only 2m deep. We went through this small canal and finally emerged into the proper lake. We were able to get closer to the birds while in the canoe than I was able to on foot. We saw some very cool types of ducks, not sure which, but I was able to get some great photos of them.

I was going to hang around and check the lake out for a few days, but it snowing outside and only being 6C in my room, I thought one day was enough. I had seen some cool and rare birds and was ready to go.

My next destination was Kunming, capital of Yunnan province. It was supposed to have a more mild climate and I couldn’t wait to get there!

Comments (0) Dec 24 2011

The bus to Weining left at 9am. It was a slightly smaller bus and not as comfortable as the bus I took to Guiyang. It was supposed to be a 6 hour journey to Weining and everything was going fine until after lunch, around 1pm. I took the first bus to Weining because I wanted to arrive during daylight hours, but that wasn’t going to happen!

We came to a long line of backed up traffic. Since we were on mountain roads, my first thought was landslide. My second thought was accident. Unfortunately it was the latter. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I walked up to the first stopped car to look. A minivan had crashed into a large truck. The truck was sideways, blocking the 2 lane mountain road. The truck was nearly undamaged but the front of the van was crushed. Just as I got there to look, there were rescue crews there using the jaws of life to open the passenger door. Sadly, the passenger was dead, as was the driver. It was disturbing to see, I’ve never seen such a recent accident like this. The driver’s side was even more crushed. They started working on opening the drivers door but I didn’t stick around to watch this. I had seen enough.

This delayed us for about 2 hours and then we were on our way. About an hour later we were stopped again by traffic. Another accident? I don’t know because I didn’t get out to look this time, no one did. It was getting late and cold. This delayed us for more than an hour but I think it was just a bunch of huge trucks all bunched up blocking the road. So I finally arrived in Weining 10 hours after leaving Guiyang, instead of the 6 it was supposed to take.

I took a taxi to the only 2 hotels listed in the guidebook and they were both full! I was wondering what the hell was going on in Weining? It’s a small city of only 50,000 or so. This was getting frustrating. I showed the Mandarin phrasebook to my next driver and pointed to ‘Can you recommend a hotel?’  We drove by a couple and he waved his hand as if to say, no, those are no good. We finally drove off the main road to a tiny sidestreet with 2 hotels across from each other. I went into the first and they had a room. I didn’t even need to see it. The listed prices were okay and I thought it would be fine and it was. Just as I was checking in though, an english speaking local arrived and kindly showed me to me room and then she got a dinner of fried rice for me, so I didn’t even have to go out to eat. That was really nice of her. Some locals here are incredibly kind and helpful.

The room was a fair price as to what I’ve been paying, around $17. This room was actually one of the nicest I have ever had. The only downside was no western toilet and it was extremely cold, only 6C. The benefits were a huge bed, TV, couch, lots of nice tables and desk for stuff and a hot/cold water cooler. This was the first room I’ve ever had with one of those. You can find them in most hotels/hostels, but I’ve never had one in my room. It was my first room to have an electric blanket as well. This blanket is under the sheet and warms up the bed nicely, too much actually for sleeping. It was nice when I was reading or watching TV but at night, with the super warm blanket, it was too much.

I came to Weining to go to Caohai lake, a shallow lake that is visited by many rare birds. After a nice breakfast of rice porridge and dumplings, I took a taxi to the lake. It wasn’t that far but I wasn’t sure which direction as the guidebook had no map.

Comments (0) Dec 24 2011

I was on the 9am bus for the 9 hour journey to Guiyang. A Chinese woman with a purse and a briefcase, about my age, sat beside. She hardly spoke any english but we communicated a bit with my guidebook and my phrasebook. The road was very mountainous and winding, a perfect recipe for motion sickness. The motion does bother me a little but I have not gotten sick from it in a long time. I wish I could say the same for the woman beside me. About 3 hours in, she grabbed 2 of the plastic bags provided freely by the bus and vomited a few times. She was always very ladylike about it, not making any mess and cleaning herself up right away after.  I gave her my packet of tissues and tried to comfort her by gently patting her on the back.  She handled her motion sickness well. This was in stark contrast to the guy that ran up and vomited in the waste bin beside our seat, getting half of it on the floor! Many buses in China have a waste bin beside most seats, which I think is a smart idea to minimize the litter, which no doubt would go on the floor or out the window.We stopped for lunch at 12 and she waited for me to get off the bus. We went into a place to eat. I saw a bowl of tofu someone was eating and showed her I would like that with rice. She motioned for me to sit down and got the food ordered and bought me a bottle of water. She didn’t eat anything.

We arrived in Guiyang exactly 9 hours later. The helpful woman’s husband was there to meet us. I was going to stay at a hotel from the guidebook which was in town, a bit of a distance from the bus station. The woman didn’t think this was a good idea because I would be leaving the next morning on a bus. I agreed but didn’t know any other hotels. The three of us took a taxi and got out 5 minutes later. They found me a really decent hotel close to the bus station. They were so helpful and nice even though they hardly spoke any english.

That night I went out to eat at a restuarant right beside the hotel called Freshfried. It was a McDonaldish place with fast food, but it was okay. I was in the mood for a burger and fries. Chinese don’t really celebrate Christmas. As one local told me, it’s more about promoting consumerism and getting people to spend money, than the holiday itself. Freshfried was the exception. It was done full on for Christmas, complete with a tree and endless repeats of Jingle Bells and other holiday meddles. It was almost surreal!

The next morning I got on a bus for Weining. It was supposed to be a 6 hour drive but it took a lot longer, more on that next.

Comments (1) Dec 17 2011