into china, early august

Anyway, next day we board the bus to china. And for being such rule-breaking line-cutting people, some Chinese folks really really want their seat number in the bus. Even if it doesn’t matter. Go figure. So I sat a row ahead of foo the whole time. And at customs I got stopped because the signature in my passport is different than the signature on my immigration card. The man told me that and I said yes, my signature was different then. I sign my name differently now. And he said ‘the signature is different in the passport than you signed here’ and again I said ‘yes, it is different because I signed my name differently then’ and he said ‘the signature is different…’ you get the idea. So then another man had to look at my passport and immigration card for about 5 minutes, and eventually was able to expertly determine that my signature was mine, both times.
Anyway, we got back on the bus to find that someone, not sure who, had gone through foo’s bag. And didn’t put everything back. She said she thought it was customs. I guess they can go through your stuff without you there. They didn’t take anything though. So we got to the city of mengla, where we had no Chinese money, so we walked really far for an atm, and we found one. and it wouldn't give us money. And we were so hot and tired and stranded. And then this man that had followed us from the bus station came up to us and wanted to change money. After trying to cheat us for a while, he gave us an exchange rate that was only a little unfair. but being as desperate as we were, we took it. We walked back to the bus station and foo looked at the schedule and said ‘you’re kidding me’ and I was like oh no, we just missed it, we’re going to sit here for like 5 more hours or something. But turns out, the bus was leaving in 5 minutes. So far we were feeling pretty punched in the face by china. So we rush to the bus where a lady and her kids were carrying their bags to the back to load them in. and then magically, foo pushes ahead and throws her bag in the back and then mine too before the Chinese lady could get her stuff there. Yessss! As we got into the bus foo says ‘take that, china.’ That was a good moment for me. It sounds rude to throw your bags in ahead of someone else but that’s how china works. Basically I can be as rude as I want and no one notices because they’re all doing the same thing. It takes a minute to get used to.

We arrived in jing hong, and were all sweaty and gross and soooo hot and found our way to the banna youth hostel. It was 60 yuan per night, which isn’t too bad. And we were able to steal wifi, so that was extra good. That night we went looking for dinner and where there apparently once was a night market was now a neon-lit strip of bars. So we started walking back. And we were so desperate for real food after traveling the whole day from the pits of hell in udomxai. We walked past a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and then another. We picked the one with more people in it. And when I say more people, I am referring to shirtless men, throwing their trash all over the floor and being loud. And one of them had the most glorious mullet I’ve ever seen. Chinese man with a flowing golden mullet. Hi-five, sir. You have just made my night.
We ordered four dishes and a beer. We actually ate all the food. Four dishes. The beer was kind strange though. Wheat beer maybe. It wasn’t very good. And the total bill was 30 yuan. That’s a bit more than $4. Amazing. What a good ending to a crappy hot long day.
We stayed three nights in jinghong, which were all amazing. I loved this town. The food was good and cheap. The first night we were walking back after dinner and came across a square. Like a concrete park covering a city block. And there were not only one, but two large groups of aerobics happening. Each had their own sound system and music playing. And there were tons of people-all kinds of people: old people young people, kids, ladies and gentlemen. all doing synchronized aerobics. like line dances. all together. awesome. And lots of kids on these funny skateboards that only have two wheels. Foo and I sat in between the aerobics groups and watched. It was a pretty magical night.
The next day was a failed attempt at tourism. We rented bikes to see some minority villages and rode there and turns out there are no villages, but rather lots of construction. And we were both tired and foo’s bike seat was doing some terrible things to her, so we stopped for lunch at a little noodle shop where construction workers eat. It was ok, super cheap though. foo said something like 'people like us DO NOT eat at places like this.' And based upon the cleanliness, the kind of place that you expect will make you poop all over the place.
I can’t remember what we did the rest of the day, we found another square that night where they played music and lots of people danced, not like synchronized aerobics style, but like grab a partner and show off your best moves. And everyone was all dressed up in their fancy dancing clothes. There were really old people and kids and young people and these two people that seemed to be quite good ballroom dancers. We got noodles and roti and sat and watched for an hour or so. This was also quite amazing. The next night we watched aerobics again, and also little-kid roller blading lessons. Three year olds on rollerblades might be the cutest thing ever.
Jing hong was my favorite town in china. It was so charming. I would go back there for sure. it seems like there's really a strong community there. you know, with all the aerobics...