The Road to China Pt. 2, AKA , OMG! OMG! OMG! I'm in China

Well I am now in the country where about 18% of the Earth's human population currently resides. I have effectively gotten around the government censors in the town of Dali so I can access my blog (for now). I'm staying at a guesthouse which must have a proxy server set up. Wow is this place beautiful, though I'm not ready to talk about Dali yet.

I awoke early on April First (no kidding) and walked down the road to the bus station in Ousomxay. I was hoping to catch a direct bus to Jinghong, a small city about four hours past the border into China, but that route wasn't running so I settled for the bus to Mengla. This was my first taste of Chinese culture shock, as most of the passengers seemed to be Chinese. Two things that I just can't seem to get past are the incessant hawking of loogies, and the comedically loud way they speak on their cell phones. Does anyone remember that bit from Trigger Happy TV, the late Comedy Central show, in which a man walks around shouting into a giant cell phone? It's like that.

Anyways, the bus got to the border around noon. I checked out of Laos at their quaint little border office, reboarded the bus, then checked into China 2 km down the road at their frighteningly modern office. With no hitches, I got back on the bus and we pulled away into China. Some interesting things I took note of in the two hours between the border at Mohan and Mengla: Although the landscape is similar to that of Northern Laos (slightly less-rugged Karst mountains), the architecture of the villages changed from the typical thatched palm and rattan stilted homes to concrete or cinderblock boxes with tin rooves. Also, the road here was amazingly modern with several dozen long tunnels built through mountains. I imagine that the journey we completed in two hours might have taken about seven in past times.

The Laos border with China

The hills were covered with terraces harboring rubber trees which were quite picturesque, and of course the regular old rice paddies. When the bus wasn't overtaking a truck and nearly barreling into oncoming traffic, I enjoyed gazing upon the hills.

So the bus pulled into the Mengla bus station and I got another wave of culture shock. I walked into the ticket office to catch an onward bus to Jinghong, looked around, and realized that nothing was written in roman script; everything was in Chinese (and yes, you may say, "But Brett, you are in China, what did you expect?", to which I would reply that up until this point in my journey, there was always some form of translation into English, or at least transliteration into Roman characters). I think you can attribute this to the fact that the transportation infrastructure in most SE Asian countries is geared for Western travelers, but in China, many of the locals have money to travel within the country and therefore it is geared to the Chinese traveler.

I walked up to the counter and just said 'Jinghong', my intended destination. The woman working the counter peppered me with a spray of Mandarin at which I just smiled. I gave her a 50 yuan note hoping that would cover the cost, which it did. I did regain some dignity by saying 'Xeixie', or 'thank you' in Mandarin, which I had conveniently learned from the Lonely Planet book.

Another two hour bus ride and I was in Jinghong. I wandered the city trying to follow my guidebook map, which seemed to have some inaccuracies. I got a bit lost, and whereas in SE Asia I would have had at least a few other Westerners to follow off of the bus, I was alone in a Chinese city. Somehow I did manage to stumble into the small traveler zone and a French guy, owner of the Mekong Cafe in Jinghong, helped me find a place to stay and translated for me. I settled down in my room and reflected on how much more difficult it will be to travel in China than it has been in any previous country I have traveled, then went out and got an old familiar Beer Lao at the Mekong Cafe and spoke with the owner for a while.

I had hoped to leave the next day as this city did not hold to much appeal to me, but I learned that they no longer offered overnight bus service to Dali, my next destination, so I would have to wait until the next morning to leave. I did my best to enjoy Jinghong for a day, hitting the city on foot and admiring the foreigness of this place. It's like Chinatown in SF times a million. Here was one of the more interesting sights:

perhaps it's just my squeamish western sensibilities,
but does anyone else notice something wrong with this picture?

I found my way to the botanical gardens, the main tourist draw in Jinghong. Tsvet and Brenda, I thought of you. Though there were lots of people there, they all rode around the park on electic cars, so I had the place to myself on foot.

A really big version of a plant that I used to have

A Durian tree, Durian being the smelliest fruit in the world in my experience

I spent the rest of the day walking and drinking coffee and bought my bus ticket to Dali for the morning. And oh, what an adventure the next 24 hours would be, but I'll wait to tell you about that.

bridge over the Mekong (they call it something else here)

On another note, I have made some plans for my travel over the next couple months. Iceland Air offers cheap flights across the Atlantic with a stopoff in Iceland so they can try to boost the economy through tourism; I bought a ticket from London, Heathrow leaving June 3 for Reykjavík, then flying on June 9 from there to Boston to visit my cousin Lisa. I will meet Robbie in Chicago on June 13, arriving by Greyhound probably, and we will take the train to Flagstaff for Sara and Dan's wedding.

As for the more immediate future, I expect to be in the Yunnan province of China for the next two weeks (I hope to get as far North as Deqin, which is at the foot of a nearly 7,000 meter peak just over the border from Tibet) before taking a two-day train to Beijing and then taking the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian Railway from there into the West.


So Ni hou, I'm in China, and I'll be seeing everyone soonish.