Travelling

Sometimes, when you are travelling that is exactly what you do......travel. It seems your own momentum carries you further than you had planned. The day of our Lucky Air flight we had intended to stay in Jinghong or maybe a smaller town for a day or so and then into Laos, but we were carried away by fortuitous links and an array of transport modes.

Our private minivan ( very plush thank you ) limousined us the 40 minutes from our Hostel to Lijiang airport where our Lucky Jet awaited. It didn't have propellers so we were happy about that, but none the less flew nervously for the fifty minutes to Jinghong where we landed into some tropical heat. We flagged a cab to take us to the bus station where we would catch a local bus for the two hour trip to Mengla. The entrepreneurial driver suggested he could take us there for a little more than the bus and turned on his airconditioning to strengthen his argument....we relented. The roads were fantastic and we reached our destination in an hour. We stopped once when the cab driver pulled over to a pineapple seller and presented us with a bag of freshly cut pineapple.....the Chinese never cease to surprise.

As we passed the bus station a bus was leaving for our next destination, so it was stopped and on we got for an uneventful journey to Menglan. We were on a roll and decided to go with it.

At the next bus stop we were accosted by a gentleman who spoke excellent English. He informed us that we needed to go to the South bus station, four kilometers away, to continue our journey and he would be most happy to take us there for a nominal fee and would also change Chinese Yuan for Laos Kip for a competitive rate if we so desired.

You just have to admire characters like this...so I agreed, not withstanding a rather dubious look from Mandy. She became even more doubtful when his mode of transport was a steel tray on wheels attached to a pushbike...but hey, we had agreed. So on we climbed, two 20k rucksacks, two heavy day packs and two bodies!


Off he pedalled and talked non stop from woe to go. We knew intimate details of his life and his family and he of ours. He wanted Lucy to meet his son and he wanted Sam to wed his daughter. When we told him Sam was poor in London, he quipped back " what like China poor"? a telling observation. "No not China poor" Mandy replied " but too poor to marry your daughter". With that he looked at me and asked if I was happy in my marriage and would I consider his daughter. I asked if he had a photo and when he replied no, I told him I couldn't commit without a photo.......he seemed to understand that!!

He organised our ongoing ticket at the south bus station, I changed some money at what I later found was a fair rate, he put us on the next mini-bus and bid us farewell....a gem of a gentleman!.

The country was becoming more tropical and the bus ride became a little frustrating. We turned off the bitumen to enter a lovely village, picked up more passengers and then proceeded to travel on rutted small road, when all the time the wonderful bitumen road was next to us. As we bumped along Mandy and I wondered why we not on the good road. Was the bus carrying contraband, were we overloaded, did the driver not have a valid licence etc etc. None of these made sense as we were in plain sight of anyone travelling on the "good road" There were no toll booths in evidence, other vehicles were using the blacktop,...it all seemed quite strange, but with three words of Chinese ( still after all this travelling!!) we were not getting the answers we needed.

Just before we left Adelaide we saw Arj Barker at the Fringe and his show was based on the premise of "letting it go". As we were never going to find out why we were travelling on an inferior road we looked at each other and " Arjed" the situation...let it go........let it go.........let it go!

But you never do!

We eventually reached Mohan, the border town and had time to cross the border, but didn't really know what lay on the other side, so we stayed in Mohan.

Note: I believe all border towns are weird places!