Here comes the heat

When the waiter in a Jinbi-square club starts giving you free Whiskey refills ...
When you start getting picked up by 17 year-old children in clubs ...
More to the point ... when you start to finally run into some foreigners in town (even hear some Hebrew) ...

It's time to move on.

Yes, with all the disappointment I had with this "school", Kunming was as soft a landing into China as one might get. Relatively cool August, regular warm water supply in the shower, calm beggars, and people that are not trying to squeeze every possible penny out of my pocket.

Before going back on the original planned route, I am going all the way south to Xishuangbanna (西双版纳). It's going to be hot.

This is Mekong country. Bordering Myanmar and Laos, with 1/3 of the population being Dai people (very close ethnically to the Thai people). 21 degrees north of the equator.
I'm told it is now 40 degrees Celsius, but a quick look at the weather forecast for the next few days says I can get away with about 35 degrees, only 85-90% humidity, and some scattered (yay!) thunderstorms. Lows are at a cool low 20's - sounds promising.

Since one is drenched in sweat in such places at all times, might as well hit it with some Thai chillies. The dai food, and more generally Xishuangbanna food is supposedly the spiciest around when it comes to Yunnan. Can't skip this one.
This is siesta, minorities, spice and Jungle country. We'll see how it goes - run away from the heat after 2 days.

Time to go out and get some last Kunming samples before I head off to my overnight bus ride:
Fresh carrot juice from the juice-shop downstairs, followed by a whole roast duck (the most expensive roast-duck dish in this excellent restaurant goes for 38 RMB - just under 5 Euro, for which they separate the duck into 3 parts: one is the classic roasted brown skin - the whole duck, you get the head, tail and whole ; another part is the duck's meat, pan-fried with some vegetables, and then the bones are not lost - serving to make a third big bowl of duck-soup).
Yummy!
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