the bus to Jinghong
Long distance travel in China is generally pretty easy and convenient. There's plenty of trains, planes, buses, boats, and the systems tend to be very functional. Some of these journeys can even be quite pleasant.
But there's always an exception, right?
I had planned to fly to Kunming then catch a bus up to Lijiang to meet a couple of friends, but the night before I was due to fly out, they phoned and said, "It's snowing here, we're coming back to Kunming tomorrow. Meet us at this hotel".
Obviously, they told me the name and address of the hotel, and even told me which bus to catch from the airport.
And "it's snowing here" was a perfectly reasonable reason to return to Kunming. When you're flying to Yunnan to escape a Beijing winter, you're not travelling to see snow.
Anyways, I got to the hotel alright. Back then, Kunming Airport was in the middle of the city, and it was more than easy to walk out of the terminal and across the carpark to the bus stop. Just a regular local bus stop. Then catch the regular local bus around to the stop I'd been told to get off at.
Finding the hotel wasn't quite as easy. It was in a compound and the signage wasn't great, and sometimes the anxiety kicks in. I walked up and down the street past it a few times. But I got there, dumped my stuff, wandered around for a bit.
I was surprised to see shoeshines on the roads, sitting there with their little shoeshine boxes and a stool for the customers. Also, it was quite pleasantly warm, but I could really feel the sun on my skin. I guess the altitude helps create a sensation similar to being under the South Pacific sun.
The next day we got tickets for an overnight bus to Jinghong, then spent the day hanging out in Kunming. Overall, it felt like the city had a magical combination of pleasantness, energy, and interestingness. I felt like this could be a good place to live. I do regret not having gone back and spent a bit more time there.
Some local customs caused a couple of double-take moments. At the bus station, out the corner of my eye, I saw what seemed to be a pile of musical instruments. I turned to look. No, it was a pile of bongs for sale. Sitting at a teahouse with my friend, there was a group of old men at the next table over. One of them took a big hit out of a bong. Relax - bongs are the traditional local method for smoking tobacco. Nothing illicit was happening.
And then came the bus ride.
Somehow I was in the back seat right in the middle with a view straight down the aisle. My friends were in a seat on the left one row ahead. To my left was a young woman who got severely carsick.
Yunnan is a mountainous province and the road to Jinghong was obviously very windy. Somehow, though, Carsick Woman was perfectly fine with the twists and turns of mountain roads. When the road straightened out, she vomited.
At each stop her partner tried to encourage her to get off the bus and get some fresh air, but she refused. Her partner emptied the box on the floor of her many sickbags while she sat there in the foul air. Everybody else had to get off.
There were several stops along the way, but Carsick Woman and her partner were going to Simao - the second to last stop on our journey. When they did get off at Simao we breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that finally we might get a little sleep.
But no, the entirety of the road from Simao over the mountains to Jinghong was being rebuilt, meaning we had a slow, bumpy ride and no sleep.
Of course, Xishuangbanna being at the lower end of the Lancang River1 and on the borders with both Laos and Myanmar meant a little extra security. Back then drug trafficking was a problem, and it probably still is. In recent years other problems have emerged, particularly in Myanmar. Anyway, extra security.
This extra security took the form of People's Armed Police Force checkpoints along the highway over the mountains into Xishuangbanna. Two of them. That's ok, it's just a matter of everyone on the bus showing valid ID. Except that one young English man who had somehow managed to fall into a deep sleep couldn't quite figure that out. He was woken by a People's Armed Police Force guard asking him for his "Fuzao"2. English Sleeping Man looked befuddled. "Fuzao!" the guard asked again, louder. English Sleeping Man remained befuddled. "Fuzao!" the guard demanded, louder. This was going nowhere fast, and it quickly reached a point where all social anxiety was overridden by my desire to get somewhere where I could finally get some rest. "PASSPORT!" I bellowed. English Sleeping Man became English Awake Man, he handed over his passport, guard was satisfied and continued checking everybody else, then we were back to bumping and rattling over the remains of the road.
Eventually we hit a bit of smooth road. That was the last stretch down the last slope to the bank of the Lancang River, thence across and into Jinghong. We stumbled off the bus, collapsed somewhere convenient while we gathered the remains of our thoughts. English Now Wide Awake Man came over and thanked me for my little rescue. Turns out he was actually a decent bloke who had been trying to learn Mandarin. But having just been woken up by a man in uniform on a bus deep in heavily forested mountains was still just a wee bit beyond his abilities at that point in time. Fair enough.
What followed was a good, restorative breakfast of youtiao and doujiang, then a walk around to a hotel, and rest.