March 2010: Jing Hong to Kunming, China

After two nights rest in Jing Hong, it's back on the road again.
Before boarding the bus, I decided to pick up the "seasickness medicine" that has been piquing my curiousity since I last saw it advertised at the Luang Prabang bus "station". It is sold in two glass vials at 2 RMB. Funny it is labelled as injection fluid, but I have not seen any Chinese shooting it up their arms. They simply gulp it down.
Jing Hong is actually out of the way from the new Mohan-Kunming highway. The bus crosses the LanChang river and got back on to the highway.
It will make a detour to towns like PuNing and Pu'er(which gave the tea its name) which are on a older highway.
Here the road are narrower and the toll station looks more retro. A lorry hauling timber was too 'wide-body', tearing a toll booth right off its base. Toll officers, police and the lorry driver stands around scratching their heads on how to clean up the mess.
It is about a six hour trip long the same mountainous roads. And this is the reason no railway connects Jing Hong to Kunming.
By the time the bus reaches its destination, I realise it wasn't anyway near the Kunming centre. Found out later that evening from the hotel that we have been dropped off at the new terminal on the southern outskirt of Kunming.
So, a week after arriving in Bangkok, I would have to wait one more night before arriving in Kunming.

March 2010: Jing Hong, Xishuangbana, China

Jing Hong is the capital city of Xishuangbana, or the more official-sounding, Dai Autonoumous prefecture of YuanNan province. Although it is the Dai minority prefecture, there is no mistaking it as anything other than a Chinese city. But you would notice that most shops and building have signs in both Chinese and Dai scripts.
The naga from Lao seems to have crossed the border and slither into the city here.
Many modern buildings here are topped with roof styled after the pagoda. Even the bus stop here gets the pagoda treatment.
At latitude of 21~22N, this is as far north as you get to find a tropical rainforest. And Jing Hong isn't lacking in greenary. Coconut and palm trees line the sidewalk. You may run into signs that warn about falling leaves and branches.
The geography and climate of Xishuangbana means it have many plants that you wouldn't find anywhere else in China. The city itself boast of two batonic gardens as tourist attraction.
Within the prefecture, you will find rubber plantations, and many plants used in Chinese medicine.
Once it crosses the border, the Mekong river changes it name to LanChang river. Usually, the water level should be high enough to support river traffic up and down the Mekong. In Jing Hong itself, there is a port of the same name, but while I was there, there was no ships docking at the harbour.
While the water level isn't very high this year, you are still not allow to wash your feet or vegetables in the river.
There is no rule stopping you from washing your motor bike though.
I have actually arrived in Jing Hong while the Southwest provinces (Yunnan included) of China experiencing the worst drought in a century. The irony is that one of the greatest tourist attraction in Xishuangbana is the Water-splashing festival (mid April, known as the Songkha festival in Lao and Thailand.) To attract Chinese from other parts of the country to the prefecture, there is actually a theme park where it is Water-splashing festival every day.
Once the hot tropical sun sets on the city, the folks gather to do a bit of singing and dancing.

March 2010: Luang Prabang, Lao to JingHong, China

The bus ticket to Yunnan came with a free pickup from the hotel to the "bus station". At 9pm, the Laotian tuk-tuk driver came around to take me, on road with no street lights, to a small hotel right in the middle of nowhere.
Turns out its a hotel run by Chinese. And it doubles up as the bus stop for the Vientianne to Kunming. It also provides public toilet, a small kiosk selling prepaid topup cards and seasickness medicine, and 2 billiard tables.
There were another 3 guys waiting for the bus, all Chinese. Scheduled for 11pm, the bus makes its appearance slightly past midnight. The digital clock on the bus has already been set to China time. As I make myself comfortable on my narrow "bed" on the bus, the other passengers (some probably set out from Vientianne) make their rush to the toilet.
I tried to get some sleep before daybreak. The Chinese driver seems to be going much faster than the Laotian one doing the Vientiane-Luang Prabang trip. I tried not to think of how narrow the road is, all how deep the ravine is. Actually, in the morning, when we got the chance to leave the bus for a little stretching, it turns out the road here is not as narrow as the one from Vientiane to Luang Prabang.














And it's good to know the bus is under divine protection.
But it does look like they are still under construction, which explain all the potholes that jolted me out of my sleep.
Before 8am, it looks like we are rolling into Boten, the border town on Lao side.
It was long before we are let off the bus to go through the immigration formalities, with the bus leaving to meet us later on the Chinese side, the town of Mohan.














The Lao immigration checkpoint, with the bigger Chinese checkpoint in the background.
Queue? What queue?
The elephant welcomes you to China.
A short walk to the much grander Chinese checkpoint, leaving no doubt as to who's the big daddy.
The checkpoint complex leads out to the ASEAN Boulevard
It is a stretch of hotels, restaurants and shops, sellings anything from Thai fruits to motor parts.














It looks like there is a market here for tranvestites, but I may be mistaken.
We are now 800km from Vientianne, and another 734km to Kunming.
We were given some time to wander around Mohan and have our lunch. Once on the Chinese highway, you will notice the difference from the Laotian road.
While the Loatian road winds itself up and down slopes, the Chinese built bridges over valleys, and blasted tunnels through obstruction.
Destination: Jing Hong, the 'capital' city of Xishuangbana.