Jingong

Jingong looked so different from the rest of the Yunan province.  It had a lot of influence from Southeast Asia (which makes sense since it is so close to laos, thailand, vietnam and berma. We got to see the night market set up. It was interesting to see how everything was brought in.

Although we saw a little bit of Jingong we spent a lot of time at the cafe.  It was time to chill but also to  figure out if we wanted to go to laos which ended up deciding we definitely were going to do. The owner of the cafe bought us our bus tickets so we could leave the next morning.

Before going to laos, we decided we should buy some snacks at the grocery store. Grocery stores are awesome. the candy section is ridiculous.

But the candy section is not as awesome as the baker section. I wish Chinese bakeries were more popular in america.

    

Jingong was so close/remote from the rest of China that Chinese characters were sometimes hard to find. English signs were out of the picture.

Getting to Xishuangbanna

If you cannot tell from Anne's face, we were shocked when we got on the bus.  We were not expecting beds even though it was an overnight bus. We were expecting normal seats.

 

There were awesome views to enjoy before night hit. We got on the bus at 11am and arrived at 2amin Jingong (the main city in the xishuangbanna region).  along the way they had us stop at this place for lunch that was crazy and really sketchy but it was the only option for food. we skipped out on lunch but for dinner we had no choice but to chow down and enjoy the food.

    

Along the way, the bus suddenly stopped along the side of this windy rode and were not sure why everyone was stopped. We eventually learned that a truck had fallen off the road. That was a rude reminder that these roads are dangerous. As we tried to pass other cars and trucks that were stopped in the opposite direction and we got dangerously close to the edge of the road. The other picture is the rest stop. Where we could find a bathroom....    

Dali- Three Pagodas

   

After biking along the lake, we were trying to make our way back  to the old town when we came across the location for the three pagados so we took a detour to check them out.

 

It was so beautiful with the pagados and mountains in the background. I don't know how well you can tell the layers of mountains in the background. The guys disappeared for a while and came back with this massive sunflower. It was so cool! I had never seen a sunflower that big before!

 

Us all taking the sunflower seeds out of the sunflower so we could eat them. perfect snack.

Hostel

Evening fun

One of the guys had just come back from Tibet and had brought dried yak meat from there so we were all pulling at it and trying to eat it. All of us at dinner family style.

Dali-Erhai Lake

on our second day in Dali we decided we wanted to check out the Erhai Lake but did not really know where we were going. There were 11 of us. We all rented bikes and headed out. It was 7 chinese friends, 1 israeli friend and then the three of us.

We stopped along the way to ask locals how to get to the lake.

We saw beautiful views as we biked. 

We eventually found the lake but decided there probably was a better location so we continued on. 

 

 

My bike! We figured out how to tie it to the back so I did not have to carry it.

  

We found a better place! The guys decided it would be smart to bring the bikes into the water...

The group that we explored with....so much for there just being three of us after Dwang and Shannon left us. yay for making friends!

 

The roads we were biking on...aka dirt roads...

Dali

The line waiting to get on the train. Instead of being normal seats, there were four people squished to each bed.

Dali had these murals everywhere in their old town. So pretty. The restaurants also all had their vegetables outside so you pointed to what you wanted and then they made dishes with the vegetables and meat you picked.

 

All the dishes were wrapped and cleaned outside of the restaurant. delicious food.

  

 

after food we decided to walk around the town and look at the different souvenirs we could buy. We found a lot of different things that we had not seen else where (for example, the fabrics, and earrings)

 

Trying street food. Cheese with chocolate. Then delicious dinner.

 

After dinner we walked around the old town.  We went into one of the  stores and tried a bunch of the dried fruits and wine.  Then we ate a lot of sugar.

Enjoying the sugar and the temples that were so beautifully lit up.

 

One of the guys could open a beer bottle up with his teeth. Jenna tried it but quickly learned it hurts.

 

The cutest little boy. This guy was awesome and dwhited and anne shen and i got super excited when we saw this guy generating energy for the cotton candy machin from his bike. YAY D-lab!!