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.