We got chatting to a guy who was traveling from Shanghai to Laos. This Aussie guy must love traveling by bus/train as that is one hell of a journey!!! Especially during the spring festival. It was cool to see so eone do something that different though!
When we got to the hostel, we found out that it had been double booked so they helped us get a twin room at the local hotel. This is pretty common and the price of the hotel was just as cheap as a hostel. I would recommend getting a twin room at the hotel but remember the time of the year that you travel within China is very important. I travelled throughout the spring festivel (Chinese New Year) and everyone moves at the same time..This means that all trains are booked out for weeks and buses are hard to come by. Hotels and hostels will Jack up the price also... (As an aside, at one point we realised that we would have to stay an extra day in Xishuangbanna so we asked the woman behind the counter if we could book the room for one more day. She said yes and trebled the price before halving that price and telling us 'NOT TO TELL ANYONE') The Phrase 'DO NOT TELL ANYONE THIS' is really becoming synonamous to China.... I never knew that the game 'Chinese whispers' is based on real events but it really is!!!
Anyway , back to the blog.... after we arrived here , we decided that we would like to head out to the small villages that surround this area.This would be cool but we though that we would probably need more than the two of us. Luckily we checked out another hostel and someone had put up a note asking if there was anybody else interested in traveling with her to see these villages. We gave Lan a call and decided that we would meet up on the way to the village.
We met up at Menghai and after a brief introduction, we grabbed one of the local buses ...
Going from Jinghong through Menghai
Lots of temples can be seen here
We are close to The Thai (and Myannmar) border at this point
I wish I opened the window a small bit more, Drat!
Initially, we took a bus from Jinghong to Menghai then another bus to the sticks, Our goal was Bada so as far as we knew it was a two hour bus journey away. There was plenty of cool scenery to observe.
Getting ready to walk to the town of Bada.
Nice view
There isn't much coal here
I need more sun these days...
The ticket : so, the number of the seat is at the top right hand corner and the word for person looks like an upsidedown v...got it...
Let's go in the direction of Manwa...
Full steam ahead! Now, where did I put my sunscreen
Map of the area. We started off at Jinghong and headed in the direction of Bada ,
get to Xiding and our trek will be complete!
No real wasteland here
mountains everywhere!
Follow the yellow( ish) (non) brick road
My co-travelers ,Lan and Sharif
There was a crowd to meet us at the first village
Locals to the rescue!
It took us a good 3 hours to walk to the old village of Bada, It got dark around 7:30 and as it was approaching that time,
Lan noticed one of the locals on a motor cycle and asked him if we could stay at their house for the night.They agreed and lead us up to their house. It comprised of one huge room with all the food for the animals in one corner, a T.V (naturally) closeby , a place where the stove was and then one side of the room was partitioned off into smaller rooms with the use of cutains...I have to say that the house itself was really comfortable. I slept on the floor and had a really good sleep but that could have been due to the home made Baijiu (a bit like vodka) that they gave us at supper time.They seemed to be a really nice family , 3 generations of the family lived in the house. I had forgotten how dark it got when there is no artificial light nearby also!!!
Twilight outside Bada
This meal consisted off A chicken....The whole chicken...fett, intestines, everything...extra tangy!!
Getting a meal from some kind people
Watching the tea
Catching 40 winks
The Big room in the house (photos taken by the fire where they boil the tea.)
comfiest house ever!
