Portrait of an LBX

A snoozy street in the Fengqing old town, by Andy

By Andy

2010/05/29 – 78 km

We start the morning with a search through town for the post office so we can send the tea we bought the previous day to a friend in Shanghai. During our search, we find that Fengqing actually has an old section of town. By old, I mean it looks Communist-era, with most things appearing to be built in the 1950s when the real Communists were around. With the exception of a few white tile buildings (why they built everything to look like a bathroom in the ‘90s is beyond me), everything is built in blocky, imposing, Soviet style).

What’s striking though is how alive the area seems compared to the new section of town where we stayed the night before. The streets are narrow, a single lane in each direction, and everyone is out and about. Street vendors peddle snacks, goldfish, bamboo brooms and anything else someone might be interested in purchasing on the cheap.

There’s even a big mosque, at which we take a quick peak on our way back to the main road. It is one of the unfortunate, white-tile monstrosities of the 90s, complete with cheap, blue, reflective glass windows. Unfortunately, there’s no one around from whom to learn any of the history, so we head back out to the main road and begin climbing.

The road, paved and in good condition once we get out of town, takes us straight up the mountain to the northwest. Below and to our right is the still under-construction highway that will soon make our road obsolete. On it, the occasional car or motorbike climbs over the piles of dirt that have been set up to keep vehicles off, a fairly ubiquitous but ineffective way of closing off roads in this country. Above, our road’s numerous switchbacks snake up the mountain, and the bridges and overpasses for the new highway, held up by tall, concrete columns, cling to the mountain face.

It’s nearly noon by the time we’re crawling up those switchbacks, and just as I’m considering a break to munch on some trail mix, we spot a small tea factory and stop to have a look. (more…)

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By Andy

2010/05/28 — 35km

After a rushed breakfast of baozi (not noodles, finally!), I walk Devi to the bus station to see her off to Dali, where she’ll spend the night before flying to Kunming and then Shanghai for her summer internship at the consulate. It’s sad to see her go, but I’m sure glad she extended her ride with us for as long as she could! If my finances look okay, maybe I’ll even get to fly to Shanghai for a weekend at some point during the summer to see her. If not, she’ll hopefully meet up with us, along with some other friends (everyone’s invited) when we get to Chengdu in mid-July.

After her bus departs, Evan and I hit the road again. It’s not long before we’re following another river the wrong way — up into the mountains.

Today’s ride is short though. We had modified our original route to Baoshan through the mountains of western Yunnan on back-mountain roads in order to get Devi to Yunxian where she could catch an easy bus to Dali. Our new route to Baoshan is on provincial and national roads, and there are two county seats on the route. Since we didn’t have Internet in Yunxian, and we didn’t get enough rest due to birthday shenanigans, we decide to hit both of the county seats and get a hotel with Internet in each.

In no time, we’re pulling into Fengqing, the hallowed home of some of Yunnan’s best black tea, Dianhong (滇红茶). With the early arrival, we plan to do an afternoon of tasting and then ship some back to Shanghai. (more…)

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