Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you
Thursday, 9th February 2006

Today was a great day.
It was a day spent on a bike by myself riding as fast as I wanted and as far as I needed. After devouring Mei Mei's 'special breakfast' (as usual) I hired a bike and headed across the old bridge and to a dirt road Judy and I had found that lead up into the hills. I had a feeling that it was the same road that we could see from the road we were walking on several days before. Only way to find out was to take a ride. What a ride it was. It was a hard slog too. So many ruts and it was much steeper that the trails and track we had walked. I rode uphill for around 3 hours and when my legs finally turned to jelly I flew back down the hill. The return journey only took 35 or so minutes. It was a bit scary as sometimes I was going a little too fast. Hey, I was excited!

I headed onto town and sat for a well earned small meal of Joutsa before jumping back on the bike and heading out into the fields to ride amongst the farmers tending to their green peas, egg plants, corn, tea and other assorted colourful goodies. I finally returned my filthy bike around 6:30pm to a rather surprised man who took one look at the bike and at me and began laughing whilst pointing to a 4wd that was driving past. I nodded and said my thankyous and headed to the Mekong Cafe for a ginger and honey tea and a chat to 2 English girls whom had arrived this morning. Whilst reading the Chinese Lonely Planet one surprised me when she asked her friend what a communist was. Very strange indeed. They have been in China for 6 months teaching and don't know what communism is.

We decided on Korean for dinner. Of course one dish had to be bibimba and the other was a rice noodle dish with a green veg and pork. Just beautiful. We had a chat to an American/Chinese guy who was on his fifth visit to Jinghong. I guess he must like it as much as me. After a short walk we decided to continue with our card playing. Judy had an early evening and headed home and I stayed to read about future travels in Laos and Cambodia.

Friday, 10th February 2006

After waking with a bad back and with me complaining of a sore neck for the last few days we decided to change back or our last hotel. The beds at the Banna Hostel are not the most comfortable beds in the world. Plus our room hadn't been cleaned for days and it was time for fresh air and a window. Funny thing is our old hotel is 20 Yuan cheaper than the hostel and you get your own bathroom. They tried showing us a few different rooms but it was time to change. If they had of taken me to the bathroom to show me the plastic curtain that protects your clothes whilst showering I reckon I would have given in!

The room we were in reminded me of a Hostel I was staying in South Korea. The room had no windows or vents and the gap beneath the door was tiny. There were 6 people in the room and by morning it there was no air left to breath. You woke feeling so sleepy that most people fell into the trap of sleeping in until well past 11am or so. There was no light so you never knew what the time was. I had begun to fall into this trap again. Plus I have decided to do not much at all for the last week here in Jinghong. Yes, it's time to just sit, walk, maybe ride and eat.

After checking in to our new 'old' hotel we watched a 'Travelogue' on (on CCTV9 'Chinas only English Speaking Channel') Singapore. If I had the money I'd love to head there and stay awhile. No chance of that for along time now. We then headed out for a big walk around the windy little alleys and lanes before heading to the Mekong Cafe for Fajita and a beer. We met up with a 'wee Scottish Lassie' we had met in the morning. She is so funny. She is full of body language and facial expressions. All her stories were made even funnier due to this. She admits to having no patience with most people let alone the Chinese. Why she came to China makes no sense at all to even her. Her funniest story (so far) goes like this.

When she first arrived in Jinghong she was frustrated, sick and very angry. She had been vomiting etc for many hours. Her 14 hour bus journey from Kunming turned into 20 hours due to maintenance work on the bus half way. When she arrived and found a hotel she found a man and basically dragged him up the stairs to show her the rooms etc. Here in Jinghong all showers etc are solar heated so you only get hot water in the afternoon, but if there is no sun then bad luck. Good for me as I don't like hot showers but bad for everyone else. So there she was almost yelling at this guy to change the sheets because she could see an impression in them and why wasn't the water hot now etc.

This went on and he didn't say much at all. When they returned downstairs for her to check in the man began to tell the girl behind the counter to have the sheets changed etc, but he was doing it in very bad broken English. She asked him why he wasn't saying it in Chinese as this would have her sheets changed quicker. His then told her he was just like her. What do you mean you're just like me! she screamed at him. I am just a traveller and I'm from South Korea. Her anger turned to huge embarrassment. So now when the man sees her he either hides or walks past rather quickly. She is so in your face at any given time. I could only kind of understand what this poor guy would have gone through. He wouldn't have had a chance to get any words in to tell her he didn't work there. It would have been so funny to watch, especially when she was asking about the hot water and he was looking at the sky and she was yelling at him, 'what, do you expect hot water to fall from the sky etc'

We all left around midnight and I headed to the Dai Guesthouse to see if my buddy who was opening the guesthouse in Laos was working. He wasn't so I joined in a drinking game with a heap of Germans.
Needless to say, I staggered home around 4am.