Long Journey Down South

After Breakfast on the 11^th, we made some enquiries about flying to XiShuangBanNa. No tickets were to be had, so it was the dreaded sleeper bus!! When we got to the bus station, who should we meet but the family from Guangzhou!! Small world, even in China!! So, we set off on our long, bumpy journey! Man, it was bumpy! We were tossed and thrown all over the place and Jenny got motion sickness! The further south we went, the scenery gradually became more tropical. Although the journey was long, the scenery was really beautiful (see picture).

We stopped in the evening for dinner at some place in the middle of nowhere! Then we took off on the bumpy roads again! I think I got some sleep but not much. We pulled into XiShuangBanNa around 8 in the morning! The whole journey had taken around 20 hours! And I thought the Kunming to Dali one was bad! The place reminded me a bit of Malaysia, with the tropical plants and trees and also the buildings. It was definitely the poorest place we had been to.

Got off the bus and noticed the heat and humidity! Jut like Malaysia except not as hot! Our first priority was to book a plane ticket back to Kunming! No way would we sit on another sleeper bus for 20 hours! Well, Jenny booked a plane ticket and we went for brekkie. The family invited us out to a village where the mother’s uncle lived. Sounded interesting. But what a journey we had in store for us!

We got on the bus and it crawled slowly out of the town, trying to pick up some extra passengers. Outside the own, we hit the country “road”. Well, it was more of a waterlogged dirt track! Oh, what fun! Worse than the sleeper bus! There was a boy with a few frogs in a plastic bag, which drove the girls crazy cos they were afraid of them! The frogs were for the lad’s dinner that night! The road wasn’t getting any better. Someone asked how long. Another hour! My God! This road would surely shake everyone’s stomach up! There was a lot of large puddles on the road and the driver was trying o negotiate them without tipping over the bus, Sort of scary since you didn’t know how deep the puddles were! Ah, character-building stuff!

We arrived in the village after 3 hours of driving! We went to the cousin’s house first. The place was in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by crop fields. Scenery was quite nice! They gave us some grapefruit. They’re mad for it down here but I’m not a big fan. Very sour and sickening. After a while, we drove up to he uncle’s house in one of those blue work vans that you see everywhere! The uncle (in his sixties or seventies) and his wife lived in a sort of housing complex. Lots of houses surrounding a central area. We had some nice dinner there and they then showed us their grapefruit trees out the back. Jenny was very interested in all the different fruits and trees. We then had some fruit called BoLuoMi. It’s a huge thing (2 or 3 kilos) with sort of knobbly skin. A bit like a durian but not as spiky. The fruit inside was a bit lie a durian as well, but not as strong-tasting! It was quite nice!

We headed back to XiShuangBanNa around 5. We wanted to find a hotel and go to the National Park the next day. The family wanted us to stay but we declined since we didn’t have as much time in the area as they did. The journey back didn’t seem as bad although it had rained in the afternoon, so there was a lot more water (in huge pools) on the road. Great fun!

When we got back to town, the bus driver helped us find a hotel. He got a good discount for us. It was a 3 star, I think. Not bad either. It was good to have a proper bed to sleep in rather than the bunks on the sleeper bus!