The week that was.

So.  After a pretty-not-so-okay last week, I figured this week had to be better; we had a long weekend (not for Easter, but for the Chinese “tomb sweeping festival”)and I, along with 6 other girls and one last minute male addition, had bought sleeper bus tickets to Xishuangbanna; a tropical location in the south of Yunnan, about 9 hours by bus from where I’m living, Kunming.

After classes on Friday, I returned home to pack, checked the weather in Xishuangbanna, a balmy 34 degrees, and packed a couple dresses and my swim suit and headed out to meet the crew for a pre-bus dinner; kind of a scary event because in the case of bad Chinese food, we had 9 hours on a hot bus to look forward to.  Luckily, that wasn’t the case, our food was delicious (minus the GIANT puff of sponge looking deep fried corn something…should have taken a picture…), and we successfully made it out to the bus terminal an hour out of the city with plenty of time to spare, found our beds on the bus and said good night.

Day 1

Nine hours later, we awoke to a whole new world; as soon as we walked off the bus we all knew this was a part of China that wasn’t really anything like China…and we liked it.  There were palm trees everywhere, houses were made out of wood (gasp! not ugly tile…) and had roofs!  Our first stop was our hostel, on my recommendation, and it wasn’t in the lonely planet, so I was hoping it would be at least pretty okay, and it was.  Clean, in a great location, if it had AC it would have been perfect (though some of my travel mates wouldn’t agree, I on the other hand feel that provided toilet paper and toiletries for less than $5 a night in a hostel is definitely not a requirement, but….that’s just me :))

We headed out to an open patio western style cafe for breakfast, the Mei Mei Cafe, a place that we would frequent while in Jing Hong, along with the also fabulous Mekong Cafe next door, ate a delicious breakfast of muesli and yogurt, while watching my counterparts chow down on their American, Spanish, and Swiss style breakfasts.  I  however, had decided last week to stop eating anything that causes yeast to grow in your body after my skin decided it would hate me and I had the face of a 14 year old pubescent teenager, and so no bread, no sugar (including fruit..:(), no alcohol for a trial of 3 weeks, if it’s looking good, 6…so far one week in, I can already tell a difference and think that I’ll be sticking it our for a while to see what happens..anyways.  I ate muesli and yogurt.  And it *was* delicious (okay, and there was some fruit in it, but hey, it was the only option with no bread…) after a delicious breakfast we decided that today would be finding the hot-springs located somewhere in the surrounding villages day, so we rented some bicycles and headed off…We cycled and cycled; past rice paddies, banana plantations, watermelon fields, children in trees, dogs lying on the asphalt looking as if they were dead (no. just hot…) and stumbled upon the hotsprings.  But seeing as though it was already HOT, we decided to first go and see the surrounding villages, with their beautiful wooden, roofed, homes, Dai style temples and hoardes and hoardes of rubber trees.  Soooo, we did.  It was awesome.  Then we went back to the hot springs and took a dip in the sulpher (read: egg smelling) pool. It looked beautiful, but smelt…well you got used to it.  But a hot spring on a hot day…is pretty hot.  But still, a good experience.  We headed back into town, stopping for a very late, much needed lunch on the way back to the city; showered back at the hostel, and went out to eat….yet again.  By this time most of us were pooped, so half of us went back to the hostel to sleep and the other half decided to take advantage of the night life in Jinhong and hit up a local disco….

 

Day 2

We decided on an early start and after an early breakfast at Mei Mei, we jumped in our “bread van” and headed on to a nearby village to take in a local market, one highly recommended on travel sites, and lonely planet…and when we got there we discovered it was just another market; had we not all been living in China and visited this sort of market time and time again, it would have been epic, actually it was still nice, but it didn’t really live up to the online claims.  The old minority women were beautiful, a few of group bought their minority hats, I ended the day with a couple necklaces and a pouch thing for my passport…and a headlamp thanks to Marcus and Rachel's amazing idea of having a market gift exchange with a ￥15 limit, Marcus got me a sweet head lamp…I drew his name and got him a GIANT pail of sugary, coconut jelly, strawberry flavour, you know the kind of thing you get in bubble tea…

After the market we headed out to wander about another local village, saw a lady making homemade paper, a Dai temple, and then headed to another village to eat, after declining the opportunity to climb a million stairs to see a pagoda…it was hot  and we were hungry..and after a delicious meal…we headed home to our hostel.  Showered yet again, that near 40 degree heat kills you!  and four of us decided to go on a swimming pool hunt.  We found it. It was AWESOME. So we swam, relaxed, people watched, and talked about hockey, soccer, unplanned pregnancies, and maybe even a bit of politics…

 

 

Day 3

Day three was a sleep in day; for four of us.  Rob, Mei ann, Rose and Sylvia decided they along with some other friends from Kunming would make the 2 hour trek each way, after a bus ride, to find a water fall…that may or may not have had water…in 40 degree weather.  Veronica, Shona, Rachel and I decided that we wanted to explore the city, especially after we decided to cut our trip a day shorter than originally planned and leave for Kunming that night.  So we slept in, had a late brunch, and started wandering…I remembered seeing a  sign for a park just down the road, so we decided to find this park…and we did…it was beautiful, flowers, greenery, a lake…an opportunity to wear costumes and dance around in front of a giant pagoda, hear cock fights (but deciding not to go watch…) finding a zip line and taking it across the lake, banging a GIANT drum; getting pictures taken of us, taking pictures of the people who were taking pictures of us…and finding our way back our new favourite spot, the Mekong/Mei Mei and relaxing on the patio until dinner/Burmese market shopping…

hours later, we headed back to the hostel to grab our backbacks; and then we split ways; Rob, Veronica, and I headed to the airport for our 40 minute flight home, while Rachel and Shone headed to the bus station for their 9 hour bus ride, two girls stayed for another day, and Rose had left earlier that day…my 40 minute flight was great, totally worth the extra $20…:)

AND. on Sunday, my friend Merrill gave me a call…the police had recovered my dictionary….I just picked it up before lunch… YAY! 

AND.  I got an email from a girl with AIA asking if I would be interested in doing another missions hockey tour this summer…this time to Slovakia and Czech Republic; I would *love* to, but really, I really spent almost every penny I had to go to Finland/Russia with YWAM and unless it’s really a God thing, I can’t see $4000 falling into my lap anytime soon…but we’ll see…