Volcanos in Tengchong
A young Chinese woman on the bus had struck up a conversation in English…telling us about the sights around Tengchong. We thought that maybe we could pay her to guide us to the nearby Hot Springs but the plan was aborted after her friend drove us around in a minivan…we paid for an expensive Bai minority lunch…we looked at a hotel we didn’t want…and after the driver took us to a hotel that we didn’t ask to go to…and we still don’t know the name of. The receptionists didn’t know a word of English but we managed to get a double room. The lights dimmed every time someone used the elevator, the dreaded evil kareoke bar was on the next floor down, the telephone rang at least twice a night with no one at the other end of the line. It was ok though because it had a WC and hot shower after 9pm and there was internet down the street a few meters, through some big iron doors and up some dark stairs to a huge room full of young boys playing computer games. There was a girl on each floor with hot water and towels. Supposed to have had dance hall. restaurant, beauty shop but nothing was operating except the dreaded evil kareoke bar and the parking lot inside the hotel compound.
The first day we just hung around the neighborhood and found great homemade dumpling soup made by a very friendly Chinese woman in the market. Bought a CD of a Chinese pop singer and a bag of fresh peas in the pod and delicious tomatoes to snack on…and after some looking Jana finally found an undershirt…in military green camaflage.
We had lunch at the Myanmar Tea House…asked a couple of English speaking Burmese men when they had come to Tengchong…1988 one said…everyone exclaiming at once…one: I fled my country…we saying, oh, since the military junta took over after the last election…told one I guessed he was a University professor in Rangoon and he said laughing…oh, about 30 years ago! I suspect these men may have figured in the opposition during the last election. That night we went back for dinner taking my laptop to treat the owners and their son and a couple young Burmese/Indian patrons with bleached crewcuts to a slideshow of our month in Burma last August.
The next day we struck out for the Tengshong Guest Hotel where there was a map that was promised at the reception desk…first I and then Jana trying to gesture our need for information…seeing the wheels turning in their heads…big pain in the arse Westerners that don’t speak Chinese…until one receptionist gave Jana a card for the T.C.C. backpacker cafe!
After walking a mile with me limping behind Jana, we practically hugged 25 year old Li Bing with his long ponytail and big smile. You saved our lives in Tengchong we wailed. For two hours were reveled in our conversation in English while he cooked us a great lunch…club sandwich for Jana and fried pork with french fries for me…a nice break from the noodle soup we were eating since leaving Lijiang. In his traveler tip book a couple from the Netherlands wrote that both Lonely Planet and Let’s Go guidebooks were useless in Tengshong, “need to put TCC Cafe in those books!!!”
There are over 90 volcanic cones in Tengchong county…22 of them with preserved craters. Jana and Li climbed one large nearby cone called Dakong Shan or “Big Empty Hill” (which pretty much sums it up) while I gave a verbal little three year old girl, Zhou Xiue Ping and her mother, Yang Yong Lai, an English lesson in the warm sun…fireworks, shoes, pants vs the English trousers, ice cream. When I pointed to a picture on my Magellan Point-to-Pictures International Translator and said “tomato” she looked perplexed…finally saying “oh, tomahto!” Jana, having climbed the ubiquitous Chinese steps all the way up to the crater of Big Empty Hill said that the view of the valley peppered with craters was stunning…thinking about what it must have been like millions of years ago…all erupting…
Tags: Burma (Myanmar), China, Conversations, Excursions, Hostels & Guesthouses, Hotels, Hotels,Hostels & Guesthouses, Restaurants, Tengchong, Touching Experiences, Yunnan
Zoe