A Month of Travel

Hey Dean!!
So I know the chances at this point of you actually coming to join me for my May romp around China are only mediocre, but I thought I would tell you about my planned itinerary to get you pumped up. I've emailed my friend Ben about those uber cheap tickets to China, so hopefully I'll hear back from him soon!

A lot of this depends on my being able to get a visa extension in Kunming when I return from Princeton. The problem being my passport expires in October and they don't issue visas to passports that have less than 6 months remaining. But it's Kunming! My current visa doesn't expire until May 3, so I'll slide into the PSB sometime between then and when I get back from Princeton (on the 25th I think?) and try to fanangle an extension out of them. That means we will have until May 25th (if I go in on April 25th) to travel. My job ends on April 28th, so I can start traveling right after that - almost a whole month!

I am planning on budgeting for two airplane trips during our travels - one at the end to get us back to Kunming from wherever we end up, and one at some point during the trip when we have an unusually far distance to travel or get stuck or something. Just so you know. Now get your Lonely Planet map out (there's a good Yunnan one on page 643) - this is going to be involved.

We can start by flying or taking a night bus (about 10 hours long) down to Xichuanbanna in Southern Yunnan. It is described in Lonely Planet as having "a laid back Southeast Asian feel and it's easy to watch the weeks slip by as you make your way around small villages and tropical forests." I'm thinking we can spend about a week there enjoying a tropical climate, eating tropical fruits and coconut products, biking to villages, getting their famous massages, going to the Banna Wild Elephant Vall...etc. From there we can make our way over to Ruili - the border town between Yunnan and Myanmar where Moe has a guesthouse. Ben has been there and says the town itself is a little sketch, but the guest house is very cool and worth seeing. After that, the next place I want to go is Lijiang and the Tiger Leaping Gorge because we never made it there with Dragons, and it looks like the best way to do that is via Dali. We can stop in for some western refreshments, get our clothes washed at that guest house (remember??), spend some time on the lake and then make our way up to Lijiang for some hiking in the gorge.

That's it for Yunnan. The next place I would like to go is Chengdu (so turn back to the map at the beginning of Lonely Planet). We could take a bus to somewhere on the train line and over night before taking a train to Chengdu. I've heard it isn't actually that terrible of a city and who doesn't love seeing pandas? From there, we can take a 10 hour night train Chongqing on the Yangzti River. I spent a day there before when making my way between Beijing and Kunming and I loved it. The city is on the water and misty and really hilly, not unlike San Francisco. Not to mention it is known for its great cuisine (it is in Sichuan) and especially known for hot pot - yum!! The next place I want to go is Shanghai, but it is a 33 hour train ride. That's a bit long for me (the novelty of trains has long worn off) I'm thinking we should find somewhere roughly half way in between to stay for a few nights - 17 hours is a much more pleasant length of train ride. We could also fly this one - both have decent sized airports. Shanghai I'm assuming will occupy at least 4 days if not a week. I also hear there are some very cools cities/towns around Shanghai. Aside from that, there are a handful other places I would be delighted to go, but don't have to. We could fly back home to Kunming, or we could go to Kaifeng - the jewish city. There is also Qingdoa, the German settlement and source of China's best beer, and Pingyao - a nicely preserved city with lots of traditional architecture. Harbin and Dalian in the north and Taiyuan just under Beijing also sound appealing to me. And of course there is Beijing since you haven't actually been yet. I could go back and do some shopping, but the city will be beastly hot and I didn't actually love it the first time around, so no huge need there.

And that's it! I'm open to suggestions. If I had prioritize, I would say I definitely want to make it to Xichuanbanna, Lijiang, and Shanghai. Aside from that, I'm very flexible! (Including that, even, I doubt this is my last time to China).

Hope this helped to light a fire under your ass in terms of pulling this thing together. Would be GREAT to travel with you.

Your dearest Chinese traveling friend,
Megan