Jungle

Just like I assumed it took a while between the posts. We have been on a six days jungle trek far away from civilization so no opportunitiy to write anything! But I will make up for it! Right here and now!

 

We're back from the trek and Im currently sitting by the pool at our hotel. Perfect time to recap the last six days! Pictures are plenty as always but I will post them on Picasa and put up the link here. It will have to wait until were back in Shanghai though.

 

In the southern part of Yunnnan there are lots of different tribes. Our trek has consisted of three to six hours of hiking every day. We stayed in Aini and Dai villages and also invited ourselves to have lunch with an Ake-family. We have walked through dense rainforest, rubber and pinapple plantations and rivers. All in all it has been wonderful! Getting out  in the nature, seeing that also China can be beautful, breath air that you actually do want to fill up your lungs with. It has been a very un-Chinese tour with few things planned and a lot of ad hoc solutions by our guide Sara. The group changed throughaut the route but all in all weve been Gustav and I, one American girl, one Canadian guy, on American guy, one French couple and one German couple.

 

So here are some highlights:

 

Caving

In he rainforest Jona and I found a cave that you could actually climb down into. It was about four meters deep and pretty big and was inhabited by a lonely lizard. Jona and I decided that we were the firat human beings who had ever set foot in the cave.

 

Mekong by boat

On the third day, we took a short busride to nowhere. We put our packs on our backs and sneaked through plantations downhill untill the Mekong opened for our eyes! Wow! Totally untouched and stunning views from the riverbed. We heard the noise of the boat coming upstreams while we were busy taking pictures. The boat took us 40 minutes downhill untill we reached the starting point of the days trek. I love going by boat. And with a totally unspoiled Mekong and surrounding jungle. Wow!

 

Fresh Baijiu

After the Wonderful Mekong boat tour, we walked up to the village. We went to have a look around. After a while I started to also look for Gustav who seemed to have disappeared. But the village was small and we soon found him and Jona having fresh Baijiu with the old men of the town. The Baijiu was cooking so it came out warm from the home made distillery and they poured it up in a wash basin,  from which they filled up their (and our) glasses. We were all invited and Gustav and I singing We gingo ner till Röda havet for them, was vert appreciated.

 

Weddings

It seems there has been a wedding in every village we stayed! But then again a wedding lasts for three days so I guess that gave us better odds. The house next to ours in an Aini village were celebrating a wedding so we decided to go over and crash it. Sara gave us a word of warning before we left though. Aini customs are to drink too much baijiu and as a foreginger youre bound to be the one everyone will want to drink with. To say no is very impolite so can not be done. This doesnt sound so bad but even though Swedes have pretty heavy drinking habits, at least we sing between the drinks. The Chines only drink. Glasses of baijiu and then Gambei (bottoms up). On top of this, the Aini hav a tendency to start fist fighting when they get drunk. We hung out with the younger crowd who only drank ber and that was great. They were already so drunk it was hard to have any kind of conversation with them. But they were at least steady enough to dance! After an hour or so someone nice told us it would probably be best if we left. So we did.

 

Mekong revisited

The next morning I almost ran down to the river to give myself some time for a morning swim before the start of the trek. Yes, the water was cold but it was great to feel clean (although it lased for approx 15 minutes as we started to climb uphill in the unforgiving sun.)

 

Hiking through the river

One part of the hike was easier done through the river rather than along it. So shoes off and we walked downstreams for more than an hour. The foot massage we had all been longing for was right there and our feet were soft as a baby bum when we were finished.

 

Pinapples and pomelo

Seriously, is there any better than cutting a pinapple from its plant and eat it fresh right there? Or to pick a pomelo from a tree and share it with your trekking buddies between two really rough uphill hikes?

 

"Only a little illegal"

Sara has a way of solving any problem that comes up! Going through a rainforest nature reserve without paying for it is only a little illegal. So is taking the boat down the Mekong river (reason why we had to sneak through a banana plantation to come down to the beach were we were picked up.) When we took a minibus back and suddenly had to swap seats and hide in the back (because the driver was not actually really a bus driver), we were not even surprised!

 

I think it is thanks to these half illegal things that Sara's treks are so good. You really actually go outside of the beaten path beause if you were to follow the rules it would have to follow the set out path which the Chinese Tourism Board likes you to take.