Entry tags:

xishuangbanna, yunnan

Yunnan Trip, Xishuanbanna

More Pictures



Flew to Xishuangbanna. How you can ever want to go anywhere else is beyond me. It’s like a tropical paradise. It’s a lot like Thailand, which means it had the most fantastic Thai food which I ate for nearly every meal every day we were there. It was 75 degrees and gorgeous, especially compared to the barren, frozen wasteland that Beijing was at the time. I could have stayed there forever with the sun and the breeze and the palm trees. It was THE life. We wandered around town and then sat by the pool at the hotel. Could it get much better? Didn’t think so ;)

We didn’t have Thai food every night. One of the nights we were there we managed to find this spectacular restaurant. I don’t know if I can even explain it. None of the tables were inside, they were all in little gazebo’s. You walk in through a typical Chinese round door and there is a garden there, palm trees, bridge over a pond, ferns, and all around you big patios/gazebo’s with tables in it (either a couple or one per). Mosquito or cloth netting sometimes around them. Tropical paradise is really the only way to describe it. We had a problem ordering, more than usual, and the waitress was not understanding. She said some nasty things and nasty words to us which I imagine she thought we didn’t understand. Sarah called her out on it and the poor girl looked really embarrassed. She was really nice the rest of the night, go figure.

Next day was an option, and, surprise, I chose the Buddhist temple. Different this time though! It was a Hinayana temple, Dai/Thai style. First one I’ve seen, it was really interesting. We went to another temple after that, after a bumpy ride on the back of a cart through tea fields. It was surrounded by a very tropical looking forest, it was fun to get lost in. We stopped for tea on the way back to town. It was terrible but they had a traditional blessing ceremony thing and they said something and wrapped string around your wrist and tied it. 4 months later and I still have it, it’s getting weak though. It won’t last through the summer.
Not much to talk about, it was a slow moving day and I was still suffering from a cold that I had nearly the entire trip. Change of weather wasn’t working for me, as fantastic as it was.

The last night of the vacation was a homestay in a village that we had to walk 45 minutes or so to get too. Bad idea on TBC’s part to make us gross and sweaty and then wake up and get on a plane. I felt sorry for the other passengers.
This was an actual homestay, nothing like the one we had in Lijiang. The houses were typical style houses for that area, pretty much an open room on stilts. We slept on pads on the floor and had pretty mosquito netting around us. I was in the house with Kat, Maria, and Alex Graeve. There was a short basketball game with the locals and then we headed back to the house for some dinner before the “party” that night. We met our hosts family’s son while we were back. 20 years old, he was fantastic. We just started drinking. TBC provided each house with some beers for us, and as Kat doesn’t drink beer, she pulled out some Vodka. He thought that was hilarious and brought out some Bijiu. Yuck, lol. We were downing everything. He joined us for dinner (amazing amounts of food!) and the grandpa came over too and started drinking with us! The kid put on some dance music so we started dancing with the grandpa, haha, it was hilarious. We figured it was the only thing that would make the TBC “party” interesting.
It was a typical party, hired dancing once again. They continued playing music at the end of it and we all played with the kids and danced. It was a lot of fun. Probably more fun for the 4 of us than everyone else.
Another ceremony or tradition that they do is set off homemade hot air balloons!! It was fantastic. It is pitch black out there and they have a big balloon/bag. They hold fires in it to heat up the air and then light something on fire and let it go! The bag isn’t totally clear, so the whole thing glows. We watched it until it disappeared into the stars. And then I imagine that there was so much oxygen that the whole thing caught on fire and came back to the ground. It was great to be out there at night with the stars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in my life, especially living in Beijing for the past year were the only stars I see are electric ones that the put on the tall building across the street.
The roosters started at 4:30am and didn’t stop. I could have killed them all.


Flew back to Beijing. It was nice to be home, but the weather was horrible, as usual. And thus the trip ended. This was 4 months ago, I might be a little behind? lol