We enjoy seeing how political borders collide with geographical borders. The Mekong river dividing Thailand & Laos (among other), the mountains between Laos & Vietnam, and now, the mountain ridge between Guangxi province & Yunnan province.
We climbed 20 km till the pass/border and then descended 20 km.
That's how borders should be!
It's been a while, so searching back through the memories doesn't work well. Our new strategy is short, daily notes. But, that will be in future posts.

So, in short, Yunnan is good for us.
The roads are not pave as good as in Guangxi (we think Guangxi is a richer province), but, we're cycling in mountains.
The people are still super-friendly, but we've expected people to be friendly all along our trip (but it's still only fair to mention it).
Gal has a theory about the altitude here, above 2000 meter, influencing some of the locals (after years at this altitude) just like lack of oxygen on the embryo. But, then again, we can say that about many Israelis ;-)
Food is good - spicy. But food all around China is good - we're not complaining.
And the landscape, mountains! Everywhere. And higher & higher as we cycle north-west.
The weather is playing with us, jumping between heavy winter (rain, haze, clouds & cold) to burning summer (killing sun, but it's a 'dry heat'). So we ride with our long shirts, wetting them at every opportunity.
So, here are a bunch of pictures, with comments...


Welcome to Yunnan!

Get used to the road...

And the views...

Drinking & eating with the guys in Funing.

Climbing...

Traffic jam up on the mountain. But not for bicycles.

Almost at the top.

Tea plantations.

We reached the pass, but where is the downhill? The Yunnan Plateau.

Rami taking the local customs.

You see water pipes everywhere: in restaurants, on the side of the road - everywhere!

Endless plains (with Lime stones, of coarse).

Passing the day, near the market.

Left up: our road. Right down: the new highway.

Unpaved, again :-(

A breeze in the passes.

Half a day rest. On our hotel roof top. between our laundry and the boilers.

Downhill :-)

Can you find a sign for civilization?

The government subsidises satellite TV to the rural areas. You guessed it - no HBO.

More terraces.

Trees, trees, and more trees. "mountains air clear as wine, and pines smell..."

The weekend market from our hotel roof in Nasa.

We found another cave!

Please ignore Gals' funny pants.

The sun was very strong, so she bought a beautiful pajama.

Another mountain is behind us.

The village committee has decided...

With Jackson & Jiang (hope to have more pictures with them).

Wake up, wake up! I want to buy a chicken.