Chinese New Year in two seperate places
Mercifully, we did not have too early of a day, and we departed at 8:30. We headed to the Dayi Tea Factory in Xishuangbanna, which is Yunnan’s biggest Pu’er tea producer. Pu’er is the only type of tea that ages. Also, it often is packaged in the form of cakes, sometimes with intricate carvings on them. Unfortunately, since it was Chinese New Year eve, we couldn’t see their factory since their workers were on vacation. Luckily, they were kind enough to open up the museum part for us. They gave us a lot of tea and told us about the history of the factory. After a lot of tea and a long bathroom break, we headed to Mengjinglai which is the Dai people’s village. By accident, we went to the Burma-China border, and we of course had to turn back. There isn’t any more free crossings across and we were looked at quite suspiciously. So we turned around and went looking for the head of the river where we’d raft down to the village. This was the Mekong river which is basically the border between Burma and China. One side of the bank is literally Burma. In the past a lot of Chinese tourists went to the village to sight see before they crossed the border to Burma to gamble (since gambling is illegal in China). Anyway, the rafting was pretty anti-climactic since the river was very flat and nobody was splashing or anything. Once we arrived at the village, we were split into our homestays. I was grouped with Meagan, Kate, and Lauren. The village preserved their traditional stilt houses. Our home looked a little poorer than the others, but the family was very kind. They didn’t speak too much Mandarin, but the daughter and her husband were pretty good. Interestingly, the daughter’s name was “yu ying” which is close to mine in Mandarin which is “yun ying” (韵盈). During lunch we chatted a bit. After, we had to drag ourselves out to get our stuff off the bus but we had some time to look at the tourist shop a bit. We then had a talk with the village head and tourism manager. The head was newly elected in his 4th day of office, and he seemed not much older than us. China is trying to encourage the election of younger heads to pass on responsibility and leadership posts to the next generation. Even so, the manager was the only one who talked, and it was obvious that the town was owned. Granted, the head didn’t speak Mandarin and the manager did, but it was evident that the manager was in charge. Anyway, we were able to see the marker than designated the border between China and Burma. We headed home for another scrumptious meal, and had a village party. I danced a little with them, and people preformed. Since it was new years eve, they set off a pretty impressive display of fireworks. When we returned home, we were quite exhausted, but it was probably the most comfortable sleep I got in any homestay, even though it was on the floor.
Valentines day! Today we left the comfort of the tropic Xishuangbanna to head to the north of Yunnan. We woke up really early, around 6 a.m., scarfed our food, said goodbye, and hopped on the bus. An eerie fog had descended on the town making it hard to see. It was such a contrast to the festivities with Chinese new year the night before. Most people were still sleeping, but we could see the lights of the other homestays on. Mercifully, we did not take a bus to Dali, our next destination. Instead, we drove the airport to fly. In the air, the last 30 minutes were pretty rough. We were on a relatively small plane (maybe 150 people at most) but I had to clutch the arms of the seat in order to curb my fear from the turbulence. When I stepped off the plane I felt queasy, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the turbulence or the high altitude, or what. We took a 30 minute bus ride to the old town of Dali, and checked into this beautiful hotel that looked like an old style Chinese building. Immediately, we went searching for Western food, and it was absolutely awful. Service was slow and bad. We were waiting for 1.5 hours for our burgers. When they finally did arrive, the patties were smaller than my palm, and Garrett’s “fried chicken” was actually stir-fried chicken. We were so angry and I was so exhausted. So I headed back the hotel. I took a nap, and I woke up with a fever, so I was out of commission for a few hours. When I woke up, I was pretty ravenous so we tried to stop in a shop for pizza, but it was too late (around 9 p.m.). The shop keeper was a cute older Iranian woman, and we bought some raspberry yogurt and some amazing apple cinnamon cheese cake. We then met up with Luca and Caroline who were also disappointed that there was no pizza, so we found a cool place that had good prices and a really nice and friendly owner. The food was quite delicious and there was wi-fi which was a plus. After our meal, we ran into some other TBCers (Samantha and Mike) so we chatted in the street for almost an hour. It was quite odd because the streets were empty. I was a little disappointed because I was hoping because of New Year it would be bustling. So we just decided to head home. But on the way, we had a detour and set off some celebratory fireworks like the few people who were out in the city that night.
Valentines day! Today we left the comfort of the tropic Xishuangbanna to head to the north of Yunnan. We woke up really early, around 6 a.m., scarfed our food, said goodbye, and hopped on the bus. An eerie fog had descended on the town making it hard to see. It was such a contrast to the festivities with Chinese new year the night before. Most people were still sleeping, but we could see the lights of the other homestays on. Mercifully, we did not take a bus to Dali, our next destination. Instead, we drove the airport to fly. In the air, the last 30 minutes were pretty rough. We were on a relatively small plane (maybe 150 people at most) but I had to clutch the arms of the seat in order to curb my fear from the turbulence. When I stepped off the plane I felt queasy, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the turbulence or the high altitude, or what. We took a 30 minute bus ride to the old town of Dali, and checked into this beautiful hotel that looked like an old style Chinese building. Immediately, we went searching for Western food, and it was absolutely awful. Service was slow and bad. We were waiting for 1.5 hours for our burgers. When they finally did arrive, the patties were smaller than my palm, and Garrett’s “fried chicken” was actually stir-fried chicken. We were so angry and I was so exhausted. So I headed back the hotel. I took a nap, and I woke up with a fever, so I was out of commission for a few hours. When I woke up, I was pretty ravenous so we tried to stop in a shop for pizza, but it was too late (around 9 p.m.). The shop keeper was a cute older Iranian woman, and we bought some raspberry yogurt and some amazing apple cinnamon cheese cake. We then met up with Luca and Caroline who were also disappointed that there was no pizza, so we found a cool place that had good prices and a really nice and friendly owner. The food was quite delicious and there was wi-fi which was a plus. After our meal, we ran into some other TBCers (Samantha and Mike) so we chatted in the street for almost an hour. It was quite odd because the streets were empty. I was a little disappointed because I was hoping because of New Year it would be bustling. So we just decided to head home. But on the way, we had a detour and set off some celebratory fireworks like the few people who were out in the city that night.