Everywhere I go I see You....

Day 19: Bamboo Raft/Botanical Garden (Xishuangbanna)

Today we went to another town nearby and took a bamboo raft down a river. It was a little bit of a let down for the money we paid. It was neat, though. It's supposed to be a trip down the river and some shows, but I think our guide kind of wanted to rush us through a little. We stopped at this place where they gave us some food. It was good, and guess what I ate -- whole fish. Yep, bones and all. These fish were only a few inches long, so it was okay. I didn't eat the heads though. I should've, just to say I did. Anyway, we got to see a few minority people singing to us and dancing and stuff. I felt sorry for some of the girls, though, because their paid to take a bath in the river in front of the tourists. They had their backs turned, but I know that I would've hated being those girls. After that we went to this awesome botanical garden. I saw it was awesome, and that's what I mean. It was a loooooong walk in, but I think it was worth it. And finally we found a place where we could get a discount with our foreign experts cards!!! YES!!! So it was a hot day, and the first place we went was designed after a tropical rain forest. Dad, you would've LOVED it. I did. It was so cool, and it just smelled very green, earthy, and alive. There were really neat trees and it just felt so good. I could live in a place like that. For a while. ;) Then we went through the rest of the garden kind of quickly because we had to get back to town. But my favorite thing to do in the rest of the garden was take off my shoes and walk barefoot in the grass. I didn't realize how much I had missed that until then! The rest of the garden is kind of a research center for all kinds of plants, but it's beautiful to walk through, too. Mostly a lot of trees that I don't know, well spaced. There was also a place with like 100 different kinds of bamboo. Who knew? Anyway, it was way cool and I thought of Dad a lot. :)

After eating we hopped on our sleeper bus to Kunming for our last day together.