Xin nian kuai le

My three weeks in the Yunnan province of Southwest China represent the full spectrum of what traveling alone can and will be. It began in a solitary, agitated, and snot infested state, followed by an escalating scale of China highlights. The journey started in the provincial capital of Kunming, known as the city of eternal spring for its supposedly constantly pleasant climate. Due to false advertising or bad luck, I was disappointed to find Kunming blanketed in a thick grey cloud, which gave it the appearance of any other generic concrete Chinese jungle.

In what can only be described as a shitty few days, all of the little things began to take their toll on my sanity. There was the chain smoking, knee tapping, caffeine addicted teenager beside me in the Internet cafe; the cats who were either mating or slowly dying outside of my dorm room; and the old man who was slowly dying from the worst snoring I've ever encountered inside of my dorm room. So, after a frustrating, mucus filled, and otherwise uneventful stay here, i made the 5 hour bus journey West to Dali, which would shortly feel like a world away from Kunming.

Known as one of the backpacker meccas of China, its no surprise that locals constantly greet you on the street with friendly hello's, followed by chants of "smoke the ganja?," usually from innocent looking old women clutching small children in their arms. (This isn't the reason why my fortunes changed for the better). Dali is plagued by swarms of tourists from all over China and beyond, and this results in all of the main corridors being filled with merchandise whose quality and functionality are highly debatable. Luckily, this madness is easily escaped on a bicycle, and riding through the nearby villages and rice fields, combined with improved health, and suddenly meeting handfuls of interesting folks from all over the globe signaled good things to come.

From Dali, I headed as close to Tibet as i will go on this trip, to the city of Lijiang. Another backpacker mecca, Lijiang's old town is a winding maze of cobble stone streets, lined with more useless tourist crap and some entertaining streets sings.

The town itself was nothing too special, but it was the jump off point for the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the highlight of my 5 months in China. With a group of fellow travelers, I embarked on a 3 day trek of the gorge, named after a famed tiger, who according to local legend, was being chased all over China, and eventually came face to face with the surging rapids of the Yangszte river, which slices through the second deepest canyon in the world. With no other alternatives, the tiger took his historic/mythological leap over the river and the rest is history.

From the onset of the trek we were chaperoned by a seemingly friendly man on a donkey, who cautiously followed our group. We debated his presence, wondering if it was included in the 50 yuan park entrance to prevent naive foreigners from wandering off the trail. His intentions quickly came to light, as one of the group members struggled to make it up a steep pass, and donkey man, as we came to immortalize him, came to the rescue and offered up the back of his sturdy, 4 legged companion, charging 140 yuan for his services. Once we reached our destination, the sun was setting over the gorge and we were face to face with the most massive mountain i have ever encountered. It took up my entire field of vision, which can't possibly be communicated through pictures, but here's a sample.
It will go down as one of the most impressive natural sights I've ever witnessed. Darkness soon prevailed, giving way to the best star gazing I've experienced in China, which compared to previous attempts, felt like a thick layer of Chinese smog had been squeegeed from my pupils.

Back in Lijiang, the scene was set for lunar new years. I didn't have high expectations for this event because most Chinese folks told me that people generally just light fireworks and stay at home with their families. This turned out to be a pretty accurate forecast, but new years eve ended up greatly surpassing my expectations. Never have my ears been bombarded with such a continual assault, not even 4th of July in East Oakland. From 11:45pm to 12:30am, there wasn't a single moment of silence or clear sky. Bootleg Chinese fireworks of varying degrees of quality and safety erupted into the night sky, or in the faces of innocent onlookers, in what was the closest experience I've ever had to being in a war zone. This was the first time i really felt completely removed from the western world, despite the fact that the display took place in the foreground of the local KFC. All over China, since there's only one time zone for this whole massive nation, the scene was likely identical, a sky full of bright lights and explosions, while the majority of the rest of the globe was carrying on business as usual. The festivities continued for the next 5 days, marked mostly by a continuous flow of fireworks, usually ignited by small children who could barely tie their shoes - if they were wearing any.

What I thought was my symbolic exodus from China took place before getting my passport stamped, on a one hour flight to Jinghong, located a few hours north of the China-Laos border. The airborne journey replaced what would have been a grueling 20 hour bus ride traversing its way down 6,500 feet of mountain terrain into the tropics. As fate would have it, the carrier for the flight was none other than "Lucky" airlines, which only became known to me at the airport check in. The thought of blasting through the atmosphere at 30,000 feet in a massive steel vessel already makes me search for a higher power to answer my prayers. Combine this with an overcompensating name like "lucky air" and you have a passenger who is ready to join an evangelical church. After a turbulent hour, I touched ground in the tropics and contemplated hugging a palm tree. Before my flight i symbolically deserted my $9 jacket which i had been wearing every day for the previous 5 weeks, evidenced by multiple grease stains resulting from careless noodle soup consumption. Its now perfectly clear that I'm not built to live in a place which suffers through freezing cold winters.

It suddenly appeared that China as I knew it was in the rear view mirror. Bilingual street signs lead the way in Chinese and Burmese, monks roamed the streets, and sandals and shorts were the normal attire. Vendors selling coconut milk and pineapple on a stick produced flashbacks of past trips to the tropics. This all felt like i had left china, at least until i officially crossed the border into Laos, which is another world entirely....