Jinghong (景洪)

Craving a few days of warmth, we ventured down to Jinghong, capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture ("Banna" for short) in the south of Yunnan Province. Jinghong, which straddles the Lancang River (known as the Mekong further downstream) and is close to Myanmar and Laos. Despite occasionally being baffled by our hotel, a few days here was exactly what we needed after being on the go for so long. A dose of tropical weather never felt so good!

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Giselle at the Mekong Cafe, a great place that caters to westerners' morning needs. (coffee, eggs, no chili peppers, etc)

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not sure what this was, but it was pretty.

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Peacock Lake Park, right around the corner from our hotel

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The bridge across the Lancang (aka Mekong)

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The view from the bridge. The Night Market is behind all those palm trees. Apparently it's quite a scene at night when all the locals cram in there for food. Unfortunately we missed out because we weren't staying up late enough at night to get there.

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Someone's garden by the riverbank.

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We walked down along the river to get a better view. We weren't yet accustomed to how hot it gets in Jinghong and were roasting before long once we left the shade. It felt really nice after being a bit cold in the mountains.

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Beach my boat once, shame on you. But beach all three of my boats, shame on me.

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The water seemed pretty low. But it wasn't the rainy season.

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Photographic evidence that Giselle stuck her hand in the Mekong/Lancang. We were going to stick our feet in but decided that was too much work to take off our boots, etc.

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We kept waiting for the magical parade with giant peacocks and golden women, but this was the closest we saw.

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The jade market. We did some souvenir shopping here.

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Demolition/construction

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anarchy

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We really liked a lot of the statues throughout Jinghong.

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Even the street signs were fairly ornate. Note the three languages. (is that thai?)

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The menu said "a little spicy" but Giselle's cheeks told a different tale. The dish didn't originally come with rice but she had to order two bowls of it just to finish her lemongrass beef at lunch. It was delicious but "a little spicy."

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Luckily most people drive slowly, otherwise intersections would be one major traffic accident.

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"Hey, don't worry about wearing blinders today, I'll block your peripheral vision with handfulls of fluorescent tubes."

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We couldn't get good pictures, but the town really lit up at night. There was neon everywhere.

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Dumpling delivery

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"Can you hear me now?"

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Toy helmets. Most riders wore helmets but since they were almost always flimsy and almost never strapped onto riders' heads, we were unsure how effective they would really be when needed.

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Wicker helmets were popular too. They're probably cooler in the summer. And you can carry produce in them in a pinch too.

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Not to be outdone, this guy had a basket on his head, a bucket in his bike basket, and a saw strapped to the back of his bike. That covers just about everything.

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Not sure what these are, but they look really heavy.

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I've been spotted! This little girl watched me very intently.

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Another toy helmet.

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Street sweepers are everywhere in China. Everyone litters but you almost never see litter on the street.

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Mother and daughter.

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It must take practice to carry loads like this without dropping them.

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Street scene. People eating, people preparing food.

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We walked down Manting Lu many times during our days in Jinghong.

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Street vendors.

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This picture doesn't do this justice. the bike in front has at least twice as big a load as the second bike. We're not even sure how they loaded it all on there, let alone peddaled the bike around town!

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Bill waited for a while, but she never even got off the ground, let alone flew away.

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Flower and fruit baskets must be big in Jinghong.

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Bill watched this little boy and the dog for a while. They stared at each other from about 20 feet apart, then the boy moved a few steps closer, and they'd watch each other some more. This was about as close as the boy got but you can see the dog either getting ready to lick the little boy or licking his chops for a snack. Not sure which.

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That's not what I meant when I said I wanted an electric clothes dryer... (remember to use plastic hangers, I guess)

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This was our hotel in Banna. It was fine. It was a large government-run hotel, so we knew we wouldn't be getting the personalized service of the small inns where we had been staying. We also thought we'd get hot water... but only occasionally got tepid water instead. On the up side it was in the 70s each day, so we weren't freezing.

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See those bedspreads? After we took this picture we went out for the day and we never saw them again. The maids would come in during the day and, to keep us on our toes, randomly change things. If we hung our towels up neatly on the towel rack, they'd pull them down and wad them on the shelf. It was an interesting game that we never really understood the rules to.

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When we checked in, one of the clerks came up with us to make sure we thought the room was ok before we paid. It was fine with us, but the clerk wasn't able to get the tv working. We assured her it was ok, we were tired, and we could take care of it later. We paid for the room, came up and got ready for bed. We even got the cable working. Then there was a frantic knock at the door so Giselle quickly switched off the tv, Bill got dressed and got the door. It was the clerk and the engineer, worried about the tv. Since it had turned off, it took a minute to restart and the engineer started futzing with it and assured us that it was totally broken. We "fixed it" once it warmed up again and all was well. We had a beautiful view, it was warm enough to open the windows, and we were overall very happy here.


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