Jinghong and Mengla (December 11 - 13)

The evening of December the 10th we got onto our first overnight bus ever. This was not just any bus though, it was a bus with about 40 tiny beds! We had never seen anything like it. The ride was actually not too bad, except for the bathroom breaks at 11pm and 2am.

We arrived in Jinghong at 9 in the morning and spent the early part of the day walking through the city. This was very exciting for us because it was our first time in a sub-tropical climate so far on the trip. The palm trees lining the road were humongous and we felt as if we had been freed from the oppressive cold of the Tibetan plateau.


Ahhhh...warmth and palm trees...finally!

Unfortunately though, Valerie got a bit of a bug in Jinghong and we therefore spent the whole afternoon in our guesthouse room.

Val felt better the next day so we took a bus to Mengla, the town just prior to the Laotian border. Mengla turned out to be another one of those great Chinese market towns, where the clothes and food are cheap and plentiful. During our time in Mengla we also met a wonderful American couple, Ben and Kate. It was wonderful to meet them and we hit it off right away.

The next day the four of us headed even farther south into the heart of southeast Asia, Laos.