Motorbikes & Villages

spent the whole day riding around Luang Namtha on a motorbike after 5 minutes of "training."
LOVE ASIA.

got ready to go just before noon, and rented two motorbikes from Zuela guesthouse after breakfast. it was 60,000 kip/bike for the day (~$7.50 USD), dirt cheap. took them out for a spin the entire afternoon, basically circling the entire township/city of Luang Namtha, stopping at stupas (temples), waterfalls, villages, whatnot.


fill 'er up. local gas station.


Laotian stupa atop the hill.

Luang Namtha is overall super flat, not very hilly, but full of dirt paths and pebbled roads. thank goodness we had motorbikes instead of bicycles, because i don't know if i could've sat on/pedaled regular bikes for another 6 hours after the day we all-day-bicycle-toured in Dali ... it was 4km off the main road to the Namdee waterfall alone, each way.


from one of the only hills in Luang Namtha. town below.


little kids waved at us wherever we rode. seems they know from birth that tourism is what runs this town.

the weather was mindblowingly gorgeous, with phenomenal billowy clouds painting the backdrop for the golden sheen on the plantlife from a blazing sun. flying down the highway or bumping along in the dirt roads was too much fun, all nature, all freedom.

Stopped at the Laotian Border.

GOT STOPPED AT THE BORDER OF LAOS FOR AN HOUR TODAY. not entering laos, but exiting china. apparently multi-entry chinese visas are 60-DAYS-AT-A-TIME, which i exceeded by 7 days. thanks for the heads up, dad.

got let off with a warning, but the border patrol had me sign all these papers being like "yes sir, china sir, i understand that i exceeded the duration of stay sir, i promise to take it seriously and never do it again." all while the rest of the bus waited for me outside ... oops.

good thing i speak chinese, though, because i actually ended up just chatting with the border patrol guy while he waited for his department head to respond to him via walkie-talkie (on what to do with the situation). we chatted about politics, lifestyle, random culture, travel, chinese tourism ....

after about a half hour wait, i was brought into this room to sign the papers and lo and behold, there are 4 other border patrol in the BREAK ROOM watching a chinese tv drama. *facepalm*

red ink from fingerprint verifying that all my signatures were original and not forged

.... good thing we arbitrarily decided to hop over to Laos instead of discovering this at the airport back to the US?

MIT in Shanghai!

Shannon and I embarked around noon Saturday (after a wonderfully Asian breakfast) for city exploration. People's square, JW Marriott lobby for a 38th floor view of shanghai, then Tian Zi Fang art district, and Cheng Huang Miao. Just before dinnertime, we got word that the CETI crew had arrived at my mom's place, and were heading our way via subway.


asianfooooods.


People's Square.


yellow was the theme of the day.

Dinner at Hai Di Lao with my mom, which Mary Xu also joined.

After-dinner walk down shanghai's ritzy Nanjing West Road, up to the JW Marriott's lobby for a sweeping night view, then continuing to the riverfront along the Puxi side.

The only thing on our minds by midnight was somehow somewhere acquiring ICE CREAM obvi so we found a convenience store and promptly hailed taxis home to rest up before embarking on our real Yunnan journey...

MIT in Shanghai.

Sh[annon/anghai].

Friday July 29 finally rolled around, and I picked up Shannon at the airport!

The subway was closed by the time her flight landed, and we missed the last shuttle bus back to my moms apartment area, so we cabbed it the 45min way back.

Shenanigans ensued, including leaving a video message on dear Pierre's wall, which we painstakingly did after recording on shannon's laptop, transferring to mine, then uploading to YouTube.

Welcome to shanghai, Shannon!

HI PIERRE