So it's three weeks into the road trip and am still alive, healthy and happy. Facebook proxy organized, tickets bookends to Beijing, pizza and beer devoured, so feeling ready for second entry.
Currently in Lijiang in Yunnan province - ancient Naxi town beauty, but of course comes with the downside of thousands of snappy happy, loud tourists. Have learnt the Chinese skill of elbowing innocent children and old ladies to get past the throng. Traveling makes a person so considerate! Off to kunming and then to Beijing Tomorrow yay! Train leaves Friday night, arrive Friday morning....hmmm...what shall I do with my time? Have my lovely old lady cross-stitch sewing (ha ha predictive text comes out spewing! That will probably happen too). The theme is baking. Fairy cake done. I think it's a rolling pin next. Wow I'm trendy.
Talking of trains, my travels from Ko Samui up the Mekong has been a catalogue of disasters. Here is a breakdown of my tranport events for the last two weeks:
1. Motorbike in Ko Samui - flat battery
2. Train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - breaks down.
3. Boat from Thailand to Luang Prabang - engine floods. Breaks down
4. Motorbike in Luang Prabang - flat tyre
5. Sleeper bus from Luang Prabang to Kunming, China - truck fallen over a cliff. Hold up 5 hours.
6. Push bike in Dali - flat tyre.
As far as I'm concerned, a 6 out of 10 journey fuck up rate is pretty bad - there's only so long you can tell yourself 'hey, this is Asia' before you start getting worried about bad karma/evil curse/simple bad luck. Hopefully the evil spirits have had their fun and will move onto some other poor undeserving.
So the nice things - the Mekong is still mighty, and despite the engine trouble had a super time drinking Lao beer with teenage backpackers on the boat to Luang Prabang (probably old pupils from Uk..) and landed in lovely LP pissed and dirty - my favorite state. Lovely motorbike trips to waterfalls, gin and tonic on the banks of the Mekong. What's not to love?!
But unfortunately the schedule bullied me into heading towards China, and am thoroughly enjoying the weirdly liberating experience of not speaking a word of the lingo. Tiger leaping gorge - tick. Dali ethno-tat shopping - tick. Flirting with a cute backpacker - double tick...
So next entry will probably be fromthe Forbidden City or the shores of Lake Baikal, or a Siberian gulag...who knows....?
