Southeast Asia

The first part of our journey is over. We are still in China, but have left the Yangtze River Basin and entered Southeast Asia.

In the space of about 3 hours, on our bus ride from Xiaguan to Tengchong, we crossed first the Lan Cang Jiang (Mekong River) and then the Nu Jiang (Salween River) to effectively put us in Southeast Asia.

The Mekong is well known and we have encountered it many times in our travels at Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Phen, Vientiane, and Jinhong; however, the Salween which is the longest undammed river in Southeast Asia was unknown to us before our trip to Myanmar last year.

The new expressway crossed the Salween then headed south along the western bank. After a few minutes we exited to the old road, continued along the river, then took a sharp right to head up and out of the gorge. On the way up we had views back to the impressive Nu Jiang Valley. Wow! Sorry, no photos from the bus window.

Here is a photo of us at Zhongtian Temple in Heshun Village, just outside of Tengchong in Yunnan Province , west of the Nu Jiang River. Lots of activity at the temple that day as it was the 15th of the lunar month.