Our flight to Beijing was uneventful and once we arrived we had plenty of time to grab a nice meal, explore the mammoth airport and secure emergency row seats for our 12hr flight back to LA. After landing and passing through customs, I bid farewell to David, Christine and Andy and caught a red-eye flight to Boston to complete my 32hrs+ of travel. Due to crossing so many time zones I had the rare experience of a 36hr birthday beginning in Kunming and ending on a plane somewhere over the middle of America.

After dinner we purchased some tea and teaware from the Cha Ma Shi shop and were presented with two Seven Cups puer tea cakes.  Only 1,000 of these cakes were produced and they are the first ever (that we know of) produced by an American company.

We then drove to a friend of Mr. Hu’s house to peruse a nice selection of Jade and enjoy some puer tea.  Christine, Xiao Zhu and I then walked the active streets of Kunming looking for slippers (no luck) before retiring back to our hotel a bit after midnight.

Back on the bus we drove along the waterfront on our way to the famous Xiaguantoucha tea company.  We were given a rare tour of their museum and shown aged puer cakes worth over $10k each!  Xiaguantoucha produces 70k tons of Puer a year, with only 3k of this being exported.  We were told the largest portion of these exported puer cakes are sold to French pharmacies where they are believed to reduce high blood pressure.

In the evening we walked along the bustling streets of Da Li and found a restaurant down a side alley where we surprisingly ran into three visiting Canadians and enjoyed a delicious meal.  After dinner we had a few drinks along a festive street with tables lining a rushing stream.

For dinner we were treated to a completely vegetarian dinner with 14 dishes to choose from.  This was likely our best meal on the trip as each dish was exquisitely prepared and we had the luxury of not dealing with tiny bones which accompanied our carnivorous meals.  Before dinner we talked with the curator of the Dali museum over tea and I purchased a few puer cakes from the shop.  In the evening we did some shopping along the old city streets and watched a musical performance from the balcony of an ideally located bar.

Afterward we took another breathtaking drive on the way to Da Li.  After browsing two hotels, the third was chosen for us, located right in the heart of the historic old city.  We checked in, had a great meal and walked the bustling streets including the main drag nicknamed “Foreigners Street” where we saw our first non Chinese people outside of our group.  The evening was spent at various street side shops as we explored this lively city.

Dian Hong owners took us out for a fancy dinner and afterward we did some more exploring around the city.

In the afternoon we picked up one of the servers from the the morning tea house and headed up to a park dedicated to the Yunnan ethnic minorities and their tea traditions.  We saw a garden of transplanted 400-500yr old tea trees and explored this vast (and deserted) park including a hilltop graveyard, a tea pot courtyard, and expansive paths with beautiful views of the mountains and town of Lincang.  The park officials even arranged for two girls to perform a traditional tea ceremony for us where they boiled the water with a small fire, roasted the tea leaves with bamboo paper and bowed as they offered us each a cup.  The sang traditional songs which were quite unique to my ear.

One of the tea girls came with us to a fancy Thai style restaurant (which she suggested) and even sang us 2 songs on the bus home to thank us for taking her out!  We went for a walk through the streets of Lincang, watching what seemed like the entire city out in the streets watching various acrobatic performances or simple tai chi like group dances.

We stopped at a rural roadside restaurant where Mr. Hu even helped peal potatoes as they prepared our fresh lunch.  We pulled into the small town of Lincang (map) in the evening and settled in after a filling meal where we cooked veggies and meat in our individual hot bowls.

In the afternoon there was a large banner reading “Chinese American Friendship Game” and a scoreboard was setup along the basketball court.  Austin, Glenn, David, Andy and me took on the factory team in a friendly game which we managed to win 27-18.  We were each rewarded with a large kilo puer cake and enjoyed a beer on the court afterward with the factory players.  We then unwrapped the Golden Melon which was still quite warm and came out nicely.

At dinner the bijou was flowing along with Glenn’s mango juice concoction and we took a few cars to enjoy Saturday night in Jinggu.  The downtown area was alive with activity and we had a great time at a disco (dance club) where our table was right next to the bouncing dance floor.  We have yet to see another non-Chinese person outside of our tour group and our white faces got quite a bit of attention from the locals who wanted to say “cheers” with us and drink a beer together.  After returning from the disco in a cab Christine and I decided to take a short walk near the hotel where we saw a slowly moving scooter crash right into the curb behind us in a baffling manner.  He got up in a few minutes and gingerly went on his way.