Mekong to Thailand

With destination Phuket, Thailand due in a few days time, to meet Rebecca and Gavin, I took a boat down the Mekong river to Chiang Saen in Northern Thailand. I've been on a two day slow boat trip on the Mekong before five years ago from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang in Laos, and it was beautiful, this bit of the river is just as good if not better. This section of the Mekong river (Lancang Jiang in Chinese, or MaeKhong in Thai) forms the border between Laos and Myanmar as it winds through hilly landscapes, mostly covered in a lush, dense jungle. You pass an occasional pier, a few mountain villages with wooden huts and a few mountain people walking somewhere, who knows where.

Leaving China was in stark contrast to entering China six months ago in Xinjiang Autonomous Region. At the Irkishtan pass crossing from Kyrgyzstan to China, everyone had to get off the bus, take all luggage some 50m away and line up in front of a gate, while hard faced border guards, searched bags and questioned random people like some army sergeants barking at their troops. Here in the relaxed South of China, the border official smiled and spoke politely to everyone in a soft voice as she quickly checked passports on the boat. I liked Southern China. It was sad to leave.


Left: To Thailand, from China, via Laos and Myanmar, 4 countries in a day.
Right: Scenery around the area where Myanmar, Laos & Thailand meet.

Winding their way between Myanmar and Laos through to Thailand alongside me were a mixture of Chinese and Thai. While sitting outside on the tiny deck area of the boat, I chatted with some of the Thais, who generously forced some of their whisky onto me after our boat lunch was over. A bit of a disaster struck at one point just after leaving a pier on the Myanmar side, the boat got sucked into one of the mini whirlpools that are a common feature along the Mekong due to it's fast currents and as the boat lunged sharply sideways, a few bottles and boxes slid off the boat deck and into the river, they realised a little later, that a valuable bottle of Jim Bean had been lost amongst it all and one man particularly seemed quite upset.



Top Left: Myanmar hill village.
Top Right: Longtail boat used by many along short stretches of the river.
Botom Left: Temple and Stupas in Southern Myanmar.
Bottom Right: Lao children watch our boat with interest.

The Mekong certainly has some of the most stunning scenery anywhere, in many places it is very narrow, maybe no more than 20m at times and there are rocks poking out of the water everywhere, which means a zigzag course needs to be followed to avoid crashing into those visible and those that lurk below the surface of the water. The hills around are beautiful, the thick green vegetation everywhere and the glimpses of hill villages and villagers especially along the Laos side are memorable. The views of the day are spoilt only by the large modern casino and hotel buildings that greet you once you reach the Thai side of the 'Golden Triangle', (the area where Thailand, Laos & Myanmar meet), there is a notable difference as nature makes way for tourism, wooden huts replaced by large buildings, then I know I am now in Thailand.

Jinghong, Xishuangbanna

Am now in Jinghong, a tropical climate, rainy season and plenty of thunderstorms, but a relaxed, slow and easy lifestyle here. Very nice, very much like South East Asia's Thailand or Laos which are not so far away, and the temples here resemble those in these countries in complete contrast to Buddhist tempes in rest of China. Even closer though is Myanmar and the town has plenty of Myanmar men here selling Myanmar jade, all very friendly and often speak English too, which is good. Although they obviously want to sell something, and I don't want to buy, still nice to have a chat with them about Myanmar.

I arrived in Jinghong on an overnight bus around 5:30am and walked into town, looking for somewhere to stay. I found a place called "Dai's Village", which I decide to stay at as I thought it might have been run by a Welshman ;) But it wasn't, it was run by a Dai family, and was a garden with some bamboo houses surrounded by banana trees. Dai are the predominant ethnic group in this city. I also met Buyang, Bai and Akhe people here and there were probably some more as I didn't ask everyone what ethnic group they were from. These were just a couple of those I spoke with, but clearly there is a wide range of people here and can be seen by the different faces, skin colour, even shape and clothing styles.


Left: Dai's Garden Building guesthouse in Jinghong is not run by a Welshman.
Centre: My bamboo hut and banana tree at night time.
Right: Coconut palms line the streets of Jinghong.

It's a small city, slow pace of life, lively night barbeque packed with young locals eating and drinking beer, some nice parks, markets, streets lined with mango and coconut palm trees and I liked it, despite the rain and thunder every day. Hired a bicycle and cycled along the Mekong and around fields out of town to small villages next to Jinghong and sat in a lot of cafes avoiding the rain.

Today at 4:55pm, I experienced my first ever earthquake tremor, not sure where from, but something I wanted to experience sometime and glad I did and that it was not too serious. I was in an internet cafe, the table was shaking but I thought it was someone opposite me getting excited about some game, but then i realised it was not just the table, my chair was shaking, I looked up and the pictures on the wall were shaking, people got up and ran outside to take a look, I'm not sure at what... Strange feeling, it really felt like the world below me was shaking, which I suppose it was...

Update: Turns out the epicentre of the quake was in Northern Laos, near Luang Prabang. Less than 200km away .


Left: Crop fields along thedge of the Mekong river near Jinghong.
Right: Taditional Dai wooden house in the fields.

Anyway, just a quick update, am leaving China tomorrow morning and taking a boat down the Mekong river to Thailand, so next update will be from somewhere in Thailand.

Quick stop in Kunming

So what's next? Well. for a while now, I have known that Rebecca was coming from Amsterdam for her holiday to see me and Gavin, who now lives in Singapore and it was time to start moving in that direction to meet up. We were still unsure where to meet, but once decision was made, I realised I had to leave immediately. Phuket in Southern Thailand is a long way away and the route there is not straight forward. There are a few options, but as I couldn't wait four days for a Vietnam visa, it was necessary to go to Kunming and then through northern Laos, or apparently there is an option of a boat from Jinghong that goes straight through to Thailand between the borders of Myanmar and Laos (no visa required I'm told) along the Mekong river, or the Lancang Jiang as it's known in China.

So, a beautiful train journey from Nanning to Kunming, passing kilometre after kilometre of never ending banana plantations in western Guanxi, through small towns dotted around a mountainous landscape. I had 5 young Chinese guys sitting around who were all friendly and spent the daytime part of the journey playing cards. Arrived Kunming at 6am and went to the Cloudland Hostel.

That day I spent with someone I met, first, eating a typical Yunnanese breakfast of "Crossing the Bridge Noodles", a huge bowl of soup, with plates of meat, mushrooms, an egg, spring onions and a few other unidentified things, which you are given uncooked and you throw into the bowl, in a specific order, to let them cook. Although I had heard of it before and seen it on menus I had never tried this, so what better place to try it than in the capital of Yunnan itself. And it's lovely !! We went to a "nationalities park" which is a park designed to inform tourists about the lifestyle and cultures of the 26 different ethnic groups that live in Yunnan province. To be honest, it's a bit of a theme park with a not very authentic feel. You get to meet people from each group and see their living style, houses, clothing, cultural habits, foods, music, rituals etc. I was dragged into a typical Daizu dance with a lovely Dai girl, snacked from some rice and nuts steamed in bamboo stick, entertained by some Wazu music and rained on for most of the morning in a typical rainy season downpour. It's set up by a lake with lovely views and is quite interesting if you have no plans to visit any of the ethnic group's real villages and see them living their lives in their true environment, but can't help feeling, the setting up of such a site and getting the young people from these villages to partake in the park, is just a way to encourage them to see how Chinese live, in a commercial world and is taking away some of the people of the future from their villages in an attempt to get them to see and live in the Han Chinese way.. May sound cynical, but it felt a little like that. When I have the time, I intend to see more of these ethnic groups, but in their remote villages in the mountains and along the banks of the Lancang Jiang, that's the only way to really appreciate their true environment, lifestyle and customs.


Left: Lunch from a steamed bamboo cane.
Right: Scenery from the nationalities park.

In the evening we went to a Bai (one of the ethnic groups) restaurant and I had one of the best meals for a long, long time. Everything was great, tasty and plentiful. So this day I ate two great meals, one error I made was not to take a leaf out of my friend Tina's blog and snap some photos, I'm always to keen to eat and forget about getting a good photo of good looking food before it's all gone !! The night finished with a night out in a Yunnan pub, playing drinking card games, not always recommended with Chinese as they are very enthusiastic about the drinking bit. The game was "shi dian ban" (ten and a half) and involved lots of topping up the glass and frequent drinking from the glass or more often glasses (at least the glasses are very small!). It was a fun night out and after many many bottles had been consumed, we called it a day and went home. Thanks to my English student HeWei and FeiFei for a great day out in Kunming.

Surprisingly I also met Tatsu from Japan today. Who? Well back at the beginning of November I met Tatsu in Kashgar in NorthWestern China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region. We were in the same room in the Seman hotel in Kashgar for a few days, chatted a bit each day and then left at different times in different directions. Around 10 days later we met in Dunhuang, in a cafe and later on the road as we cycled by each other in opposite directions to/from Ming Sha Shan just outside of Dunhuang town. To see each other in a hostel in Kunming over six months later is remarkable, both of us having seen much of China in the meantime, but in totally different ways, following different routes. Was good to see a familiar face again.

Yichang, Wuhan and now Nanning

At Yichang, I found a decent hotel and contacted others that I had met on the trip, who were also planning on staying there, to give details on how to get there. 'Leave the bus station, cross the road, walk 30m west and you are there', thought I would make it simple for them. Kiran arrived a bit later having gone on the dam trip and I went to meet her at the bus station anyway, but she wasn't there. Called again, "where are you?", "at the bus station, by the gate" she replied, "Hmmm, me too, don't see you !" Turns out they had been taken to a different bus station, why on earth would they do that ??? Well, that's Chinese tours again for you. Anyway, problem solved, she and later 2 others arrived by taxi from their remote bus station in the North East of Yichang.

It seemed a decent town, quite calm, relaxed atmosphere, riverside location, we went to the train station to get tickets for tomorrow, Kiran got hers no problem, the train I wanted, had no tickets available, as Yichang was a transit station for the train and so only had a small allocation of tickets that had already gone. Bugger. Went out for dinner, practiced some Dutch with the Dutch lady (forgot her name now!) and had a local dark beer, brewed in the bar where we drank it.

Got up early and walked around an awakening town, and decided to try again for a train ticket. As I boarded a bus to the station, I was a little surprised to see the floor covered in vegetables, huge stacks of leeks, herbs, chinese cabbages and alike which I had to jump over to get to a seat. A few stops later a few ladies, got off, hauling their stacks of vegetation off the bus and to the nearby grocery market. I guess they came from a nearby village with produce ready to sell in the big town. Not quite as bemusing as the endless boxes of bananas and mandarins that I once shared a bus with from Tbilisi, Georgia to Zaqtala in Northern Azerbaijan, but it's just one of those moments when you catch a brief glimpse of real life going on in China.

Unsurprisingly, still no train tickets, so I headed to the bus station, had a nice bowl of 'mizhou' (rice porridge) and took a bus to Wuhan, where I hoped to get a train ticket to Nanning.

First attempt at a ticket office around the corner from the bus station failed, no tickets, sold out, Guilin? (which is on the way), also sold out, they tried to sell me a flight, but I was not falling for that. Checked at the bus station, there was a bus leaving in the evening, Ok that would have to do. Queueing for a ticket, some local who spoke English came and chatted to me and asked where I was heading, I told him and he said, that Nanning was a long way to go by bus! And that I was crazy! Yes, I already knew, but there were no train tickets I explained. He pointed out a train ticket booth at the bus station I had not seen earlier and told me to try, but surely if they are sold out they are sold out, I said. Anyway I thought maybe it was a sign, an omen and thought I would just check one more time. Unbelievably they had a ticket !! Amazed, I headed off to the train station. No idea what was going on at that first ticket office I tried. (It's the one at bottom of Xinhua Lu, and is mentioned in The Rough Guide to China, don't bother with them.)

Not much to report from brief stop in Wuhan, apart from lots of old men with white beards around the station offering palm reading and that I bumped into someone I had met on the boat trip again. He seemed excited at seeing me again as he ran out of his hotel chasing me ! He was from Dunhuang and we had chatted a little about my visit to his city, he was very pleased I had been and liked it there! Anyway, off to the station, on the train and settle down to another overnight journey to Nanning. Plenty of the usual entertainment on the train, with young children staring at me inquisitively and their keepers teaching them a new word 'laowai' I heard one girl teaching her daughter the word for foreigner, as I walked by. Happy that I can help educate these children a little by bringing a new word into their vocabulary ;) One of these young girls, became more nosey and started sneaking looks around the partition to look at me and then run away whenever I caught her looking, nothing new, it happens often on trains, but ever so funny to watch..

Something I hadn't seen before is beef packaged like candy, I was offered some by a girl on the train, it's simply dried beef cubes, but wrapped in little wrappers in a packet just like sweets, really bizarre, I was expecting chocolate or some boiled sweet, I was surprised to find it tasted of beef ! Although I had enough noodles and fruit to eat, she kept offering me bits and pieces, beef, spicy chicken etc, which was very kind, maybe she thought my diet of noodles and fruit was not nourishing enough.

Spent a while in Nanning again which is now even greener than before with Fruit trees lining the streets, now in full colour, even more dance classes going on around MinzuDadao which we sat and watched for a while, intrigued by the fruit basket dance to a song apparently called 'The Lychee Dance'. After a lot of hectic travelling from place to place recently it was nice to slow down for a while, in a hot and humid Nanning. Signs that the rainy season is beginning were plentiful as heavy downpours temporarily flooded the streets until the sun came out again and dried them up before the next downpour.

One afternoon, Jane took me along to a school magic show that she had been invited to by a friend. Standing in the playground I was getting plenty of curious looks from the children, some would edge closer then run away, a bit more courage and next time they might say 'hello' and then run away, it was funny. But once, one or two started talking a little more, many more gained the courage to get closer and crowded round to watch, so for a while I was surrounded by the kids being questioned thoroughly as to my origins, reasons for being there, which of the women I was with was my wife and if I liked football and basketball. If I moved anywhere they all just follwed in a mob and surrounded me again ;) Once I had exhausted my chinese vocabularly it got a bit tricky, so had to try turn it into a bit of an English lesson and after a while I was relieved when the magicians appeared and I was left alone again.


Left: Schoolchilren watch the magic show.
Centre: On stage.
Right: After school ice-cream.

Yangtze River "Cruise"

If you say to a Chinese person you are going on a trip on the Yangtze river, most don't know what you mean. In China, it's known as 长江, Chang Jiang (Great River), The Yangtze is actually just one of the many tributaries of the ChangJiang that flows from Western China to the East coast at Shanghai, somehow 'Yangtze' or 'Yangzi' has become the name with which the river is know to the rest of the world.

The journey levaes from Chongqing and goes as far as the Three Gorges Dam, just west of Yichang and via through the three gorges that give the trip its name "Yangtze, Three Gorges Cruise!" Some of this trip was a bit of a disaster, badly organised and wrongly informed by travel agencies through which you must book the trip, it turned an interesting, "last chance to see" trip into a disappointing shambles. But, this is what can happen when tourism takes over an interesting adventure and turns it into a moneymaking showpiece for tourists.

From Chengdu, the hostel at which I stayed informed me that they could book the river trip, or I could book at an agency in Chongqing, from where the 'cruise' starts. To make things easy I booked it there and to be fair to them, they probably only advised me from whatever information they were given by the connecting agency in Chongqing. I could book an "all inclusive" tour of boat trip, cabin, a few tours, plus transport to Chongqing or just the boat trip. Not wanting to be packaged into a 'set menu' as it was, I booked just the boat trip with bed, with knowledge i could go on individual tours whenever i wanted by just booking with a guide on the boat.

I took a train to Chongqing for 48 RMB instead of the inclusive bus option of 120 RMB so I could leave at a more suitable time. At Chongqing the agency who organised the ticket reiterated the facts, showed same pictures of the boat, explained they had restaurants, bar, disco, nice outdoor deck seating area and English speaking guides for the sights on route, and that nothing could go wrong. I met with two others who had also booked at the hostel in Chengdu and we were told to follow a certain guide to the boat. Twice my ticket was checked boarding the boat, but only when I tried to get my allocated cabin was I told I was on the wrong boat. So, to cut a long story a little shorter i eventually got on my 'correct' boat which was about a km away, back where I had left the agency. But this was a different style boat entirely, it was much smaller, older, rustier, poorly maintained, smelly, had no bar, disco, only a small outdoor deck, which you had to pay 55 RMB for, the deck had no covering to avoid the rain that poured down on the second day, you could only sit in a small little room, crowded with people or in your cabin. After questioning the agency they said I was on this boat because I had only booked the boat trip, not the tours, but this turned out to be nonsense as a Dutch lady (and others) who I met later on the nice, big boat had booked the same as me. It was also not as they also tried to tell me, because I had booked the 3rd class, because both boats had both 2nd and 3rd class cabins. So, I was separated from the two friends I had made, I was on a crap boat, the restaurants which had been promised was one small restaurant with just one choice of meal (although it was pretty good and cheap food admittedly) that opened for an hour at breakfast, lunch and dinner time, there was no on board entertainment at all, my new guide, who I eventually found, spoke no English at all and therefore avoided me, not knowing that I could probably have made myself understood well enough in Chinese anyway, but it made it difficult to arrange any other site visits, even though she happily helped everyone else with whatever they wanted. Finally this boat had problems which meant it ran late and therefore did not stop at one of the most interesting sites I wanted to visit, which was Asia's largest waterfall. A 'cruise' is not an appropriate word for spending three days on this boat !

OK, to stop the moaning, the good news was I met Michel from France. He was the only other non-Asian on the boat and we had a good time, chatting, moaning;), having a few drinks and sharing puzzles and stories. Michel had one of those metal disentanglement puzzles called in French "Le Casse-tête Chinois" (Chinaman's Broken Head!) with two metal 'M' shaped pieces that you have to separate, it looks easy but isn't, but was solved. I had my Rubik's cube, so we spent hours playing with these to pass the time. Michel has been living and lecturing in Russia for the past 10 months and so we chatted a lot about experiences in that country and he had brought a bottle of vodka with him from Russia, so was glad to find someone to share it with at last!

Left: Leaving Chongqing at night.

Right: Deserted, evacuated city that will be flooded within 2 years.

The trip was OK, some nice scenery, but nothing special until the three gorges which we passed through which were all picturesque and best of all there were the three small gorges, for which first we had to get on a smaller boat and then later, yet another even smaller boat, were even nicer as we passed through very narrow gorges with high cliff faces, waterfalls and rock caves. The first stop was a place strangely called 'ghost city' which I had not booked for, but I got off the boat a little later than everyone else therefore having a nice lie in and still made it to the nice temple there at the top of the ridge overlooking the river, without having to follow along with a guide I would have barely understood anyway, much better way to do it! 'Ghost City' was a strange name for this place that had nothing ghostly about it at all, but later on we passed by cities that were real ghost cities, cities now deserted, empty, gutted buildings where people not so long ago lived, but had recently been evacuated because within the next two years these cities will disappear under the water, flooded due to the construction of the three gorges dam further downstream that will provide energy for a large percentage of China in future. On the third day we stopped at Wushan city, thanks to Wang, a business student from Guangzhou who we met on the boat who was the only other English speaker on board I think, I learnt that Wushan was a new city, two years ago the original Wushan, which was now flooded due to the dam, sat below us as we sat and chatted on the boat. This was a story that was repeated for many more settlements along the river and will be even more within the next two years, as yet more villages, towns, cities are flooded, people evacuated and rehoused away from their origins to make way for the new China. This was all rather sad, thinking about what has happened to so many people's homes and lives in the past few years as they are moved away from the ancestral origins. It really is very sad indeed.

At Wushan, we had a cultural show experience with locals providing entertainment in the form of dance and local rituals at a city theatre. That evening I also sneaked onto the nice big boat and had dinner with Paul and Kiran, who I had been separated from earlier, in their nice luxury restaurant with large choice of menu. It was a very nice boat, with a nice bar to enjoy a beer and game of cards later and they even had some awful karaoke singers too, a truly typical Chinese evening experience!!!

Left: Beautiful Wushan girls from the local cultural dance show.

Right: Mini-boat driver from the 'small three gorges' section.

The boat ended at the Three Gorges Dam which we could barely see due to the fog, but I was not too bothered about it, many people were taking a tour around the dam, but I decided it's just a big wall, some engineering and was not worth the large fee for a tour around, after all I already now how a dam works. Some Chinese I chatted a little with though seemed very proud of their marvellous engineering feat and were excited to visit. They also seemed curiously fascinated by the bridges regularly placed along the river, where many would jostle for position on the deck in order to have their photo taken with these large metal structures. Interesting to see how different things appeal to different people.

So, at this point I jumped on a bus to Yichang where I decided I would stay a night, found a nice hotel which I managed to negotiate a good price with the friendly manageress and spent one night in comparative luxury.

Left: Shoemaker at some stop on the "Small Three Gorges" section.

Centre: This is what the Yangtze river looks like, typically foggy.

Right: ...and one of the three gorges