bye, bye china

salutations!

we are in the last town in china before the border with laos. have just discovered that the border is open tomorrow so we will attempt the crossing then leaving a buffer day before our visas runs out on monday.
in preparation we have been trying to spend all our cold hard yuan (of which there are just under 12 to the british pound); so far have bought six rulers and three chopsticks sets.
weather here is truly heating up and we have all donned the shorts and flip flops.


the wild elephant park we went to yesterday about 50 or so miles up the road. this is our first taste of the rainforest seen here from above. if you have constantly read our blog you will notice the stark change in vegetation: we even saw our first rubber trees today.

the 'wild' elephants at the wild elephant park. did not discover any real elephants despite the masses of signs telling us to watch out for them. at least we did not have to pay for the show- we would not have been best pleased. the show contained 3 of the 70 elephants that are native to the region.

genuine wild monkeys in the wild elephant park although they had been somewhat domesticated by the vast number of mainly chinese tourists that visit the park. like true monkeys they tried to stell people's food and got whipped away by the park keepers sticks. lewis dropped the pineapple on a stick on the floor in excitement/ fear. not best pleased. this was the cheeky and extremely active monkey.

the less cheey and more sleepy monkey.
in the cablecars above the wild elephant park. the canopy was so thick that you could not see the forest floor or indeed any of the vegetation below the top canopy. the cablecar ride was about two km long but did not actually take you anywhere so you still had to treck from entrance to exit. however, tessie, queenie and lewis took the bus back to the car (the driver drove especially for them) and daddy and i walked the 830m back. we are not sure if it was 830 m as they don't seem to actually measure distances here.
for granny (or the big g as she likes to be known), freddie (birthday girl) and other flower fans. one of the many beautiful flowers that we are seeing now we are in warmer climes. this one was at the wild elephant park in the pond.

one of many chinese to english signs. clearly there are not elephants for miles around although another sign told us that the park closed at 18:00 as that is when the elephants come out of hiding.

indeed

our first proper supermarket in china. when we do buy food, which is a rare occassion as we no longer camp, we buy it from the local food markets/ stalls. this supermarket was in kuming and was really quite snazzy with fresh meat and bread galore.

leaders of the pack. vroom, vroom. one of our favourite chinese taxis. whole camp had a ride on these petrol motorbikes (didn't appear to have the previously ubiquitous electric ones) about 100m down the road just to say we had. lewis and i had a specially extended ride to the expressway.

please note their fancydress hats. truly something to behold- my favourite is the wicker one on the far right. none of them have straps.

more pool. they love a bit of it in asia. saw one today that had been outside for 8 years.

all the people we have come accross so far work extremely hard. something i cannot even begin to comprehend. they are threshing the rice here by hand which they do in most cases. when in the countryside the fields are usual packed all day but the fields are all in various states of the growing/ harvesting cycle.
in the ancient part of one city there were fairground rides everywhere the bumper cars took our fancy. they were without wires and were completely battery powered. would like it known that lewis and i completely smashed daddy and tessie. they brought a whole new meaning to the word terrible. so much knitting goes on in china just in the street as part of some sort of w.i. meeting. however, we have not seen any knitted items for sale but in the colder areas of china some people were sporting rather fetching jumpers.
they will wear simply any hat in china including setsons on bikes whilst travelling on the expressway and wedding hats when washing cars.
making baus by hand.
special military band playing the ancient area of one city. we enjoyed the free concert whilst eating in our restaurant with the french windows open. luxery.

chia jin (goodbye in chinese as hopefully we will have entered a whole new world by the time we put up our next post).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM!!!

and hello bryn- we know how much this will be appreciated. you have a new found fame in the wood camp.