January 10, 2002, Xishuangbanna, China.
Remember the wild elephants? Well.... we did see a lot of elephant tracks and other leftovers below our treehouse, but we must have slept through their early morning hike down to the river for a drink. So unfortunately I did not get to see or take any pictures of wild elephants. Anyway, I enjoyed spending the night in a bamboo hut in the middle of the jungle - a thrill in itself. After breakfast the next morning we hiked some more on the boardwalk along the river, enjoying the lush growth literally everywhere around us. We stayed to see the elephant show a second time before catching a local bus back to Jinghong. The next day I spent with Oma and Papa riding bicycles around town. We visited a pretty botanical garden full of tropical trees: a beautiful palm forest, mango orchard, rubber tree demonstration and ponds with tons of large goldfish that I loved feeding.
The next day, Sunday, was market day in Menghun. Papa knew this as one of the best markets on his China trip in 1987. We decided to take a taxi for the day (US$ 30) and it took us 2 hours to get to the market through some very nice scenery of high hills covered with rubber tree and tea plantations, as well as rivers with lots of bamboo groves on the shores. As soon as we got out of the car we were surrounded by old ladies of the Aini minority group, dressed in colourful costume, especially amazing headdresses: full of embroidery and silverwork, including coins. They were trying to sell us these hats as well as other embroidery work. The fog was only starting to lift at around 10:30 am which provided for the much needed light for Mommy to take some pictures. Besides the Aini ladies, I saw mostly Dai ladies, visible thanks to the long, sarong-like dresses they wear with a silver belt and sometimes a towel wrapped upon their head. Their facial features are very much like the people of Thailand. Indeed they are of the same ethnic "family" as the Thai and share the same Theravada Buddhism. As a result, near their villages you often see a stupa and small temple complex, housing a few young monks in orange robes.
On the way back we spent the afternoon at some other stops, like an old temple with a unique octagonal pavilion, near a nice and quiet village. We visited several workshops making tiles where I saw how they made them from mud all the way to a baked tile. We also walked through an Aini village, where all the houses where on stilts and made of wood. After an hour hike we arrived at a Lahu village, but didn't stay long enough to see anybody around.
On Dec. 31 we headed out by bus to Galamba, a sleepy town one hour south on the Mekong. First we had a nice lunch in a typical Dai house decorated with the traditional peacock design: I ate pumpkin flowers stuffed with pork and then fried .... good! Then we crossed the Mekong by foot ferry and went for a long stroll around a Dai village full of nice people, interesting houses and courtyards, past an old temple and a sugarcane field. We took a mini bus back to Jinghong and decided to go for dinner to Mei-Mei's, hoping to find a party. Alas, the place was pretty quiet (so were most restaurants), but still we had a nice meal on the terrace, chatting with travelers around us (Papa had brought a bottle of Mekong whiskey). For the rest of the evening we went to a night market where there were some rides for kids and I loved jumping around on one of those aircastles. Otherwise there wasn't anything special going on in Jinghong (the Chinese celebrate their New Year's a month later), so we decided to go to sleep, especially since we had to wake up early the next day.
The Aini celebrate New Year?s Day and we had heard of a festival in the village of Gelanghe. So we took a 7:30 am bus to Menghai, checked in a hotel there and tried to catch the next bus to the village up in the mountains. As it wasn't going to leave for 3 or 4 hours, Papa ended up finding a small van that would take us right away for US$ 12. It was a pretty rough road all the way up, but the scenery once again was worth it. Closer to the village I started to see people in festival dress and while we walked through some gates we arrived at the centre of the village. We soon understood that the dancing ceremony had just finished, but I was awed by the amazing costumes many of the Aini were wearing: so colourful and full of garlands and pompons. Strolling through the village we noticed that people were entertaining friends and family in their houses and eventually we too got invited to have lunch in a larger building. A table was set out especially for us with at least a dozen different dishes, most cold, none of which I recognized. Then some of the dancers in full dress came to sit with and around us, poured us drinks and before I knew it we were in the middle of a small party. As Papa had not arranged any transport back to town, we started to walk down the road, hoping to catch any truck or tractor. Luckily a private minibus stopped not much later and gave us a ride to Menghai. That evening we ate at a restaurant near the hotel and once again the folks had to give their "dog & pony show" in the kitchen to show the cooks what we wanted to eat.
Same usual routine the next morning: get up early, no breakfast, get a bus to Mengze, no connecting bus to Xiding in the mountains, therefore chartered a minivan up the same kind of rough, bumpy road, this time in pouring rain. Xiding, located on a steep mountain slope, is where there was a Thursday market. It was small and a bit wet, but we got to see some beautiful Aini women of different tribes. No sun though, so it wasn?t all that worth it. Again, no bus back so we shared a pick-up with an American couple that we keep "bumping" into (first time in Langmusi!). Lunch in Menghai and dinner back in Jinghong.
January 3rd was spent in town, as my Oma would leave for Holland the next day. Papa helped her buy some jade bracelets that were offered all over town by Burmese shops (including their betel nut-chewing, sarong-wearing, Pakistani-looking, Muslim shopkeepers). We also got our Chinese visas extended (US$ 60): as our new video camera was sent to us by courier on Dec. 30, it would not arrive before our visas expired on Jan. 5. Then after a nice picnic of dumplings and sugarcane, under the palm trees in our hotel garden, Oma left for the airport. She had a flight to Kunming where she would connect the next day to Singapore and Amsterdam. She told me she had spent 4 wonderful weeks with us in China and we were all sad she had to leave. I would miss playing my favourite "restaurant game" with her!
After a complete day of pouring rain (good time for some schoolwork...), we took the bikes out again and toured the villages and rice fields nearby. The fields were active with farmers as it was planting season. In the valleys they grow rice in wet paddies, so after tilling the partitioned fields they flood them with water. It seems that only the ladies were out there planting the shoots in neat rows. This resulted in a scenic patchwork of light green fields everywhere around us. We walked along the muddy plots and I got a very close look at their work. It was nice to see the ladies in their colourful dresses and wide rimmed hats, all working in a row, ankle-deep in the mud. We had a good time and they got a lot of laughs watching mommy try to plant as well.