Bits of an email to Wes

The first thanksgiving away from home - how sad?? A little depressing to think that I'll be in China for Thanksgiving. I'm not even going to be with the group, we've decided to split up and so I am going east with Katie (one of the leaders) while Trevor goes south alone, Dean will stay in Kumming with Chay (another leader) and the last leader will take the three remaining students up to Beijing. Get this - a three day train ride. Can you imagine?? I am so glad I am not going to Beijing with them. Katie is a great traveller and knows all the cool places to go, so I've been getting really excited planning out my last two weeks with her. We could go down to Xichuanbana where it is warm and tropical and has a ton of cool villages and then over Ruili which is on the Burmese border and we have friends there who would sneak us across. We might also go to this cool place about 4 hours south of Kunming that is urban with very traditional architecture and no tourists, or to this place Fung Ming where we could camp out and go rock climbing. We might also go over to LiJiang on the Tibetan border and do this day hike over a mountain and into this Nasi village on a lake where we would stay a few days before heading back. I think what we have finally decided to do is to take a night train east to the next province (I haven't left Yunnan province yet) to this place called Yangshuo that is suppose to be absolutely beautiful and have new minority villages. We could do rock climbing there for a few days and then trek our way up the Li Jiang river and see massive rice patties and wind up in Guiyang which is supposed to be a really awesome city and then fly back to Kunming. We might also get to go caving and maybe hit up Beihai, a coastal town in the area with beautiful beaches. Ah, the possibilities are endless.