Trekking in Xishuangbanna
Trip Start
Aug 22, 2005
1
35
48
Trip End
Jul 17, 2006
Jinhong, China
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
We walked about 40km in two days, stopping at villages en route for lunch and then to rest for the night. The hospitality of these people is heart-warming; at the first village we arrived at a kindly old lady who spoke little Chinese took us into her home and gave us tea and food. This was the first time I had tried chicken feet in China, and even now I'm not entirely sure which part of them you are supposed to eat. Scraping off the skin and flesh with your teeth seemed to be the technique, though this revealed bony little "fingers" which looked disconcertingly like a baby's hand. I even tried crunching some of the bone, a trick Sarah had taught me to "get to the nutritious marrow" but somehow it seemed just wrong.
After a long afternoon of trekking we arrived at dusk in a village hoping to be able to stay for the night and once again in a matter of minutes we had been invited into a family's home, taken on a tour of the village by Hai Yen (who spoke excellent Chinese, I am told) and then watched the sun set over the village from the rooftop of the house. Through the translation of Haruna and Philip, I learned that the villagers were Aini people, a subset of the Akha people of Tibet. Both villages provided an incredible insight into the way these people live, isolated from the outside world by the mountainous terrain and acres and acres of dense tropical forest. They live from hand to mouth: tending to the fields during the day and then eating together around the fire at night. The houses are simple wooden structures with running water but usually no electricity. The village kids, often naked and grubby, play happily in the dusty lanes alongside a boisterous and raucous menagerie of dogs, pigs and chickens. Our arrival was somewhat of an event for the village, and though some members of the older generation seemed initially sceptical, all you had to do was flash them a smile and their wrinkled faces quickly cracked into the smile reciprocated. We spent the evening eating with the family and drinking homemade moonshine, perhaps the strongest drink known to man. We bedded down on the floor, the four of us in a row like peas in a pod, and were later joined by the mother and father! When we left the next morning we gave them a modest sum of money for their kindness and hospitality, and they felt obliged to dress up in their traditional costumes, usually reserved for festivals and special occasions. The womens' headdress is particularly spectacular, decorated with feathers, beads and old coins of French and Indian origin.
The second day of trekking was much longer, though we managed to ward off the midday heat by exploring a deserted Dai Buddhist temple and taking a dip in a reservoir, where we also ate the packed lunches kindly provided for us by the Li family. From there we followed the water pipeline all the way down to Menghun in time for sunset, to see thousands of ducks being moved from their pond to be sold at the market the next day. That night the town was in a festive mood, with pretty girls dressed in traditional costume perched side saddle on the back of motorbikes on their way to some party, and kids setting off firecrackers in the street late into the night. But after two days of hard trekking, I had very little problem sleeping.
