A change of weather and a change of pace: Xishuangbanna

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Jinghong, in the area of southern Yunnan collectively known as Xishuangbanna, was an entire change of pace for us. It felt much more like Thailand than China. The weather was very hot, the people weren't as friendly, the culture wasn't as emminent, and the pace was much more relaxing. The main minority group was the Dai people. most of whom are now settled in Thailand.  Nevertheless, it was a nice place to recover from a cold, and actually have a relaxing end of our trip (sleeping in, exploring the town without a schedule, etc.)

We arrived in the town of Jinghong in Xishuangbanna quite late because we had  missed our flight from Kunming. We were immediately greeted by more people in costumes, and more salespeople. We searched around for a bus into town; this turned out to be problematic because we didn't exactly know where we were going, nor did we know which hostel we wanted to stay at. We found a bus that would take us to the middle of town for 4 RMB, so we hopped in the small minibus. The driver told us he would be back soon. We waited for about 15 minutes, and then we realized that we were not going to leave until the driver found more people. Frustrated, tired, and sick, we dragged ourselves out of the bus and tried to find the driver, yet he was nowhere to be found. There was a group of taxi drivers outside the bus talking and laughing. One of them had directed us towards the bus originally, so we asked him where the driver had gone. All of the men looked at us with humored looks and refused to answer us. We continued to pester the taxi driver, asking when the bus would leave. Once again we were confronted with attitude. Being at my absolute last nerve, I began yelling at them that I was sick, tired, and frustrated; I then yelled "I want to go now, who will take me now?" The drivers continued to laugh at us, and finally agreed to take us at a higher price than it should have been. I was so angry that I didn't care, and we quickly made our way to town.

Fortunately, we found a hostel pretty quickly. The rooms were decent sized, but the floors were cement and they were clearly not ventilated. I asked them for a fan, and out of kindheartedness (and perhaps a fear of the angry/sad look on my face) they found one for us. 100% more relaxed than before, we sat down for our first Xishuangbanna meal, which included fried bananas, beef soup, and fried taro root with tomatoes. We then very quickly fell asleep.

The next morning we awoke later than usual (which was still 8:30, I'm still very accustumed to getting up early) and our first priority was finding a flight back to Kunming, which we had yet to find due to our mishap with the trains in Kunming. Fortunately, the man who ran our hostel was quite helpful, and found us an agency with tickets for relatively cheap prices. The booking agents even came right to our hostel to give us our tickets, and while he was preparing them we sat down to a nice breakfast of banana pancakes. After that, we were not sure if we wanted to go and sightsee outside of Jinghong (as most of the tourist sights were outside the city) so we thought we would walk towards the bus stop and decide when we got there.

While the bus station was not to far away, we took our time looking at the markets and shops along the streets. The people of Jinghong were clearly much more lethargic than the rest of Yunnan, or China for that matter. They barely lifted their heads when we walked into their stores, and everyone seemed to be walking at a much slower pace. The weather was clear, and close to 90 degrees, so we felt lazy as well. By the time we had reached the bus station, both of us felt too enervated to get on a bus to travel for two hours to go to a botanic garden, so instead we decided to get something to eat, and then go to the smaller, less impressive botanic garden park within the city of Jinghong itself.

The place we found to eat was another cute, whole in the wall cafe that faced the street. Since the menu was all in Chinese, we could read some, but not all of the dishes, so we asked the owners, two middle aged women, a middle aged man, and a young boy, for recommendations. They recommended the pork chops and soup, and so we ordered those along with fried potatoes. They also offered us soup, and showed us all of the vegetables that we could put into it. We then sat down and watched them informally make our meal from scratch; we watched one lady peel potatoes and stirfry meats, while the other lady, a plump woman with an EXTREMELY thick accent, talked to us in Chinese, much of which I didn't understand because of her accent. The meal was delicious, and we left happier and fuller than we had been before.

Our next stop was the Jinghong plant and flower garden, where they had rare plants and flowers from the region, as well as centers of research, including a fully functional rubber tree garden (where actual rubber was being extracted). We languorously waltzed through the garden, taking pictures and chatting. There were many beautiful palm trees, colorful flowers, and even a large lake that you could hop across using lilly pad-shaped stones. There were also small rooms with orchid plants. There were more than just plants, however. The garden had clearly been endorsed by members of the communist party, as there were many monuments to previous leaders such as Zhou Enlai. We spent a couple of hours winding our way through the garden, and then decided to move on.

We had heard about traditional Dai song and dance shows put on for tourists. We knew that it was a tourist activity, but we thought it would be fun regardless. When we showed up at the arena to buy tickets for the show, I realized that I needed to go to an ATM. A taxi driver near the ticket counter overheard my problem, and offered to take us there for free. I was immediately suspicious, but hopped in the car anyway. He took us to the ATM, and then on our way back offered to reserve our tickets for us. He told us if we gave him the price of the ticket, he would get us better seats. I knew there was a catch, but gave him the money at the gate anyway, and he immediately returned with our tickets. We then went back to our hotel (which was only a block away) and drank some tea. We told the man who owned our hostel we were seeing the show, and he told us he could have gotten the tickets cheaper for us. That was when we realized that the taxi driver probably could have gotten the tickets cheaper to, and kept the extra money. Ally was quite angry, but I figured that since we were going to pay the same amount ourselves anyway (since we didn't know our hostel could get cheaper tickets) we really didn't lose any money. Regardless, we then walked back to the song and dance show.

The famous festival of the Dai festival is the "water throwing festival." Held inn April, this Buddhist festival involves splashing large amounts of water on each other in  celebration.  While a largely fake version (extremely fake) version of this festival was reenacted for vistors at this song and dance show, many other activities, costumes, dances and traditions were demonstrated for all kinds of tourists (well, those that speak Chinese anyway, or those who do not care about understanding the dialogue).

When we entered the arena, the area outside the stage was full of people dressed in traditional Dai costumes, singing quite loudly. After we gave them our tickets, we were forced in between two lines of men and women in costumes, who then volleyed us back and forth with their hips. After tripping our way through the line, we saw many different demonstrations of dances and traditions, many of which we could participate in. One particular activity was a dance with bamboo sticks. Pairs of people sat across from each other, each holding one side of a very large bamboo stick. They moved these sticks apart, and then together in rythym, and then people danced among them. Ally and I both tried this activity. Other activites included throwing a large ball back and forth (somehow I managed to throw the ball behind me outside of the arena, the workers were not thrilled).

After we engaged in these activities, we moved into another area where there were tables, small plastic stools, and dinner. Trying to get our food turned out to be quite an ordeal. We somehow managed to find two stools together, and while Ally went and got us bowls of noodles, I guarded our stools. I then got the unhappy duty of getting the rest of the food. People were ruthless trying to get the grilled meats and fish, sticky rice, and fresh fruit. In the fruit line, I literally elbowed a man who was trying to reach in front of me. This seemed to be commonplace, however, as I was pushed and shoved around as well. Finally, we were able to sit down to a traditional Dai style dinner, including small grilled fish on a stick, beef kabobs, spicy noodles, grilled bananas wrapped in banana leaves with a spcy sauce, fresh fruits, and sticky rice mixed with pinapples. I was only able to get a few of these things; fortunately, however, we sat  next to two people with a tour group, and their tour leader gave them more food than they could eat. Thus, they gave us some of theirs.

We then went to sit and watch the performance. Even though the performance was in Chinese, I was able to understand some of it. There were many dances with elaborate costumes, including a rendition of a hunting dance, a water dance, and even a marriage ceremony. They also asked for audience participation, where members of the audience helped them to demonstrate courting rituals, some kind of bottom shaking dance, and the marriage ceremony itself. The parts without the audience participation, however, were much more interesting, as the dances and the costumes were so beautiful, and the music was wonderful to listen to.

After the end of the performance, we were given instructions that Ally and I didn't understand. As we were leaving, where the food was before stood a stand with many red bowls that had candles in them. We went to take one, and a lady yelled at us and pointed to a slotted box. We didn't hear her, but we assumed we had to pay, so we just walked away. We found out later that we didn't have to pay, so everyone gathered around in the entrance area with their candles, while Ally and I just watched. We all stood around, and then as a group, moved to an area behind the auditorium where there was a large lake. Everyone then placed their candles on the water. I had heard of this festival in Thailand, it was supposed to bring luck to one's family. After they placed their candles, we all went back to the entrance area, where women on raised platforms went around in a circle to music and threw water on us. Others danced in a circle around a large bonfire, and many of the audience members joined in. After a long time of dancing and singing, we left.

The next morning, we wanted to go to the Banna Wild Elephant reserve. We got up early the next morning, and went to the bus station. Before we hopped on the bus, we ordered another bowl of mixian, which in Xishuangbanna was spicier, yet also had a citrus flavor.

The bus, which should have only taken 45 minutes, took almost two hours because of massive road construction. I learned on this bus ride that road construction in Xishuangbanna was nothing like America; the entire road was dug up, and highway traffic had to literally go offroad to continue their path. It was uncomfortable, but we made it to the reserve. We bought our very expensive tickets, and then began our way through the park.

It was during this part of the trip that I felt the most taken advantage of when it came to money; the entrance fee included very little, and at every corner we were pressured to spend more money. The beginning path was filled with people carrying exotic animals, and they would allow you to hold them and take your picture for a fee. I held one of the animals (though I did not take a picture), a large lizard; I felt bad for him, as he was clearly sedated and his mouth was even taped shut. I looked at many of the other animals, with appendeges clamped or mouths taped shut, or sometimes even literally in chains. We then went on to the monkey arena. I always sympathized with monkeys in American zoos, as it seemed that they didn't have enough room. Here, 10 times as many monkeys were put together in about 1/3 of the space American zoos offer. I realized the hypocrisy of this place, a place that claimed to be a wild animal reserve, but in order to make more money, were really hurting many other animals.

We made our way through the bird area and the butterfly pavillion, where we met the only nice lady in the park. She cleaned the park, but as we looked around for butterflies, she helped us spot many of them. We then made our way to the cable car, where we had to pay even more money. First, however, we bought a traditional Dai snack, which was sticky rice stuffed inside bamboo shoots, and then grilled over an open fire.

The cable car ride was really beautiful, except for the large amounts of wasted and trash on the canopy of the forest left by other visitors. We were unable to see any elephants, but the ride was calm and relaxing. From the cable car we could see the extent of the land, which stretched far beyond the park itself. We saw mountains of rainforest, covered by a low layer of mist. It was beautiful. After our ride, we then went on a hike through the forest itself. More opportunities to spend money presented itself, including a large swing you could ride, and they would take your picture. I wasn't thrilled about this, but Ally wanted to, so we did. Ally then regretted her insistance, as the ride terrified her. Nevertheless, we got our pictures. The people who took our pictures seemed friendly, but I couldn't tell if they were being nice, or simply making fun of us because our Chinese wasn't good. It didn't matter however, as we continued our hike.

One of the funnier parts of this particular sight was seeing the English translations of many of the signs. Most of them were translated directly, and in English were ridiculous to the point of laughter. For example, for 50 RMB you could "lease a tour guide." Instead of telling visitors to keep off the grass, the sign read "The little grass has lives, ask to show mercy under the foot." I explained to Ally the correct context of the phrase "show mercy" and she found it funny too.

At the exit of the park, there were tamed elephants doing performances. We weren't particularly interested in seeing this, so we bought some fresh fruit smoothies and moved on. Our next plan was to go to the town of Mengyang, where we could visit a Jinuo ethnic village. We wanted to take a bus to save money, so we first went and asked the people at the exit where to catch a bus. They told us quite cryptically that we couldn't take a bus, we had to hire a taxi. There were many taxis parked outside, so we asked them; they very rudely told us they were waiting for other people. After about 20 minutes, we went bck and asked where to find a taxi. The same lady then told me that we could catch a bus, but we needed to walk down the road outside the park. We weren't exactly sure where that led, but we followed the road for awhile. 30 minutes later, we arrived back at the entrance of the park. At this point, we were both frustrated and hot, so we asked once again what to do. The ladies at the entrance told us to simply wait at the road near the entrance, and a bus would drive by, and we could flag it down. We were already familiar with the concept of flagging busses down, so we sat in a little hut on the side of the road and waited.

About an hour and a half after that, the only vehicles that had driven by were taxis, tour busses, and the occassional trucks carrying fresh vegitation. We were beginning to panic, as we were for the first time on our trip facing the prospect of having no way to get back to our hotel. Then, a middle aged couple came and sat down in the hut next to us. We explained to them our situation, and they told us "we have our own car, we can take you to a larger street where you are sure to find a bus." They wanted to rest for awhile before they left, so we sat in the hut and chatted for a few minutes. They were a cute couple; the woman asked many questions about us, and whenever the husband spoke she would scold "speak SLOWER, she doesn't understand you when you talk that fast!" Half the time I did understand him, but it was funny to watch them bicker.

The road they took us to ended up being a really large 8 lane highway. I wasn't sure what to expect, but a friendly couple trying to help us dropping us off on the side of a huge highway, which we also had to cross, wasn't anywhere near what I assumed. They told us to simply put out our hand, and busses would stop for us.  We said goodbye, quickly ran across the highway (and through a median with thick grass) and waited anxiously and scared. In order to alleviate our fear, we began taking pictures of ourselves against the highway with very scared faces. Contrary to what I feared, however, within 10 minutes a bus passed by, and stopped to pick us up.

The bus was full when we got on, so I ended up sharing a seat with a middle aged man in the front passenger seat, and Ally sat on a small stool in the aisle. The bus was full of Chinese people, and they looked at us with obvious puzzlement as we sat nervously on the bus. One of the men struck up a conversation with me about American basketball; I think I was a disappointment, as I was probably the only one he had ever talked to from America and I knew little about basketball (even more, I'm from Denver, and the Nuggets are a terrible team).

Somehow, we made it back to Jinghong (by the time we caught a bus it was too late to go to Mengyang) safe and sound. The first thing we did was go back to our hostel, and then we went to find something to eat. We ran across a nice cafe, the Mei Mei cafe, near our room which was full of foreigners, who were actually some of the first foreigners we had seen on our trip. Two were graduate students from the Netherlands doing research on the Dai people; there were also a smattering of middle-aged Europeans, and an Italian-South American man from Brazil who had hitchhiked his way from Eastern Europe to Xishuangbanna.

Among this eclectic conglomeration of people began a conversation about the origin of french fries. I, trying to be witty, threw in a comment "I could be a stupid American and say they came from America, but I know that isn't true." This comment, which I had said with the intention of meeting new people and jumping into the conversation, backfired, and suddenly these people began 20 minutes of insults towards Americans. I was used to people having less than flattering stereotypes about Americans, but this was the first time that I had heard large amounts of people directly, to my face, calling us all stupid, ignorant, culture-less idiots who have no good food, and all eat at McDonalds everyday (despite my laughter and corrections to this stereotype). I left feeling quite angry, as I never could see a bunch of Americans openly insulting a European sitting eating dinner; if that did occur, I would be equally appalled.

As I ranted and fumed about this situation, Ally and I went to a night market nearby. Here we saw a collection of cheesy Dai souvenirs, including purses, shoes, minority costumes, and even the generic Chinese souvenirs of Mao pins and backpacks, and Cultural Revolution memoribilia. We wandered for awhile, and then headed back to our hostel for a good night's rest.

The next morning, we awoke pretty early; however, because we had a flight in the mid-afternoon, we decided to stay in town. We went back to the Mei Mei cafe for breakfast, where we ordered banana and chocolate pancakes with potatoes. We then decided to further explore Jinghong, and I wanted to get my haircut. The new part of town we explored was very similar to other parts; relaxed people in small stores selling clothing. We found a small hair salon where we could get our hair cut for only 5 RMB. I asked Ally to get hers cut with me, so she asked them to simply trim her bangs, but keep the same style. About two minutes later, she exclaimed "Oh no, Gina look!" It turns out that the woman had completely botched her style. I felt bad as I had forced Ally to get her hair cut, but once we worked with it a little, it didn't look that bad. Somehow, the person who cut my hair did a great job.

We then came across a market, where suddenly we saw the less relaxed part of Jinghong. It was an everyday food market, although I saw strange vegetables and weird meats on every corner, all raw and fresh, ready to be taken home. We also saw small clothing stores, and booths on the streets selling everything from cookingware to socks and underwear.

We then made it back to our hotel, and took a taxi to the airport. We made sure to leave extra early since we had missed our flight to Jinghong. We arrived, checked in, and went to the boarding area to wait. About half an hour later, a woman came up to us and told us our flight was delayed, and that we were going to a hotel. I was very confused, as I didn't want to fly out the next day. She then explained that our flight was only delayed a couple of hours, and we were going to a hotel only to rest. This was very confusing to me, as I didn't understand why we would go to a hotel for only a few hours. Another woman explained to me that it was simply more comfortable at the hotel than at the airport, so that was why the airlines put us there. We went to a nice 4 star hotel and slept for a couple of hours, and then they bussed us back to the airport. At the airport, we waited another hour; 45 minutes before our flight, however, I saw people crowded around the service counter. I went to the service counter, and in a confusing exchange of words, I found out that we were each entitled to 100 RMB because we waited. I was very frustrated, however, as I had a difficult time hearing the flight attendent, and others, knowing full well my mandarin wasn't perfect, were shoving me aside and yelling in my ear. I felt they were taking advantage of my lack of language capabilities to cut in front of me, and it made me very upset. Nevertheless, I still recieved my 100 dollars. We then got on the plane, and landed in Kunming with time to still find a hostel.

Overall, I felt Xishuangbanna was a very different place from the rest of Yunnan. My friend and I both agreed that the people were not nearly as friendly; however, we did still meet some nice people, and it was a nice relaxing end to our vacation.