Work Travel Volunteer

The bus was obviously Chinese - much plusher plus you couldn't see anything for the smoke. M pointed out that it's all very well eating all these health foods and drinks for supposed virality but if smoke like a chimney all damn day, there ain't nothing rhino horn will do for you!

Encountered our first Chinese queue at the border e.g. there wasn't one. In the end our driver intervened and slapped our passports down with a big grin and puff of smoke and disappeared off again. That told ‘em. Not quite sure how people ended up in front of us, but they just seemed to magically appear and we were always at the back.

Getting into China took a while for me - I think my surname confused matters "Lee" All the time though, everyone was really kind and smiley - not what we had been expecting at all. Even managed to change our kip to yuan with the help of our lovely driver cum passport stamper cum find a toilet helper.

One thing that we were confused by (as opposed to not being confused by the total lack of knowing what or where anything was or being able to converse with anyone) was the lack of tarmac roads for the first hour into China. Note to China - build your own roads before building other countries.

Got deposited at Mengla and successfully bought a ticket onwards to Jinghong by going up to the counter and saying "Jinghong" and smiling. Travel in China? Easy! Thought we had twenty minutes before our next bus left so found a lovely little restaurant where we pointed at some fresh food (me: tofu and shitake mushrooms, M: beef and pak choy plus woman imitating a cow with horns for good effect) and they cooked it all fresh with a cup of steaming hot green tea to wash it down with. And again, people had warned us the food wasn't so great here, but this was possibly one of the nicest meals I'd had in a while.

Got out our tickets to check the times and our chef looked at them and then her clock which showed 1:10pm (our bus was due to leave at 1:15pm) Still not quite sure what had happened as both M's clock and the bus's had said 12:55pm so I ran back to the bus terminal by which point, yes, it was 1:15pm.

The restaurant emptied our huge meals into six takeaway boxes and sent us off with a smile. Chinese takeaway anyone? Did us for the rest of the day at $2 each. I thought China was supposeded to be expensive too?

The rest of the day was spent with a load of Chinese men who were either a) sleeping b) smoking or c) throwing up (orange bags kindly provided) courtesy of winding roads. Finally, as if our senses weren't assaulted enough, we stopped off for a rest break and we encountered our first public Chinese toilet which unfortunately did live up to expectations. Concrete blocks to squat over an open hole covered in you know what and spit all up the walls plus no doors. Luckily I had the womans' to myself so made sure I made full use of the facilities to pretty myself up.

At Jinghong, we successfully pointed at the symbol for our hostel and another smiley lady pedalled us to the correct place then bartered for a room in a clean, cheap hostel, also successfully.

Wondering when all these kind, friendly Chinese people are going to morph into the "they are not like us" people we've been expecting and the trapdoor in the clothes shop will open and we'll fall into it and never be seen again."

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