In 3 hours we get on a train back to Yinchuan. Fortunately classes don't start for another 10 days. This was definitely the kind of vacation we need a vacation after.
After we left Vientiane we took a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad bus up to Luang Prabang. We got a room close to the Mekong River and basically played cards for 2 days. It was nice.
From Luang Prabang we took a GORGEOUS ride up the Nam K-something river on a long boat. There were tons of children playing on the shore or on the rocks in the middle of the river. They would all wave enthusiastically, and most of them were naked. It was pretty hilarious. Some of the kids would run along the shore with the boat as long as they could, or do flips and jumps when they saw us watching. It was easily my favorite part of Laos. The limestone cliffs, mountains, river side gardens, rapids (easily avoidable), vegetation in general, and mostly the children made for a pretty spectacular 8 hours.
When we arrived in Nong Khiew on the long boat we got to shore and saw two small villages connected by a long bridge and totally surrounded by mountains and cliffs. It was the stuff of movies. It was by far the most beautiful scenery in any town we stayed our whole trip. There was not much to see or do, but just being among the scenery was pretty neat.
The next morning we took a tuk tuk to a small town about 30km away, where there was supposed to be a bus to the China border. There was not. So, we hitchhiked in a pick up truck with a caravan of Chinese photography club members. It turned out they were guys from all over China who were just friends by their association with this photography group. One guy was apparently in charge of all of the roads in the Yunnan province, so we let him pay for lunch. They brought us all the way to the border where we hopped on a bus that was on its way through to Kunming. It all worked out fantastically. We've had to work a whole lot harder to get from point A to B on this trip, so we appreciated how everything fell into place.
We arrived in Kunming by bus around 6am and bought train tickets to Xi'an for that evening. We couldn't get train tickets to Yinchuan until the 12th so we spent the last 2 nights here finishing our souvenir shopping, with the exception of the Woller men (Dave included)... who have me stumped. Suggestions welcome.
We'll be in Yinchuan tomorrow. It's been a long, fast, slow, crazy, exhausting, fun, enlightening 5 and a half weeks.
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