In Luang Prabang, the centre consists of a hill with a temple and the main road lined with stone houses left by the French colonial rulers. An ensemble, which in its entirety is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Jinghong is a young city. If you want to know something historical about this area, you have to follow the minorities. The most prominent here are the Dai. One morining...
One of the biggest gifts that C. and D. give me is the introduction to Chinese tea. I spend some time looking at the world map in the common room while C. prepares it.
I follow C. through the hot streets of Jinghong, smiling. We got out of bed early today, to experience the market in full swing. Although it's just 7 o'clock, the sweat is dripping from my forehead and my spine.
The Stone Forest tears a big hole in my budget. First, I decide not to visit it at all. But meeting N. makes a trip out of the city seem possible. I decide against my initial gut feeling and am ultimately convinced by the beautiful photos. It's one of the excursions that I bitterly regret.
The roof of the world is very different from what I imagined. The mountains in Tibet look like the perfect backdrop to car adverts. Like the Swiss Alps minus the Christmas trees and alpine huts.
Before I can go to China, my backpack is inspected, and my ukulele unwrapped. I play the border guard my Hakuna Matata with a raspy voice. They get excited.
Holi is known as the Indian Color festival around the world, but it's much more than just a celebration of the powder that is thrown in the air on that day. Spring is welcomed and every color brings a blessing.
Over the walls and the floor I feel the vibration of the gong more than I hear the sound. The gong sounds with bells, traditional oboes and the never-ending Tibetan laryngeal song that echoes over the speakers like a rattling chainsaw.
The cab rolls up the mountain with difficulty, and on top one after the other we tumble out of the car and onto Monastery property. We are received by a young monk with 110 other students.