Day 5 (March 8th) Illusions

In the morning we were visited by 2 people. First by the creepy boy who we'd seen before just walking from town to town with his walking stick and a casket of water. He wandered around the tent while Tchye barked at him. I thought that he was going to attack the tent with his stick or something and was glad that Tchye was with us. The second visit was more pleasant. A young biking boy about my age stopped by to check things out. He was really nice and took pictures of us and Tchye, Alek's bike and the tent. He was biking from Simao to Jinghong. In the afternoon we biked through a valley filled with banana trees and rice fields. Reflected in the rice fields was my original dream of what most of China would be like. I thought that I would find my relatives in a small dirt covered village and join them in the rice fields wearing the typical pointed Chinese hat...that actually isn't used so much, their hats are made of flower fabric or just round straw. Nevertheless,I couldn't stop looking in every direction except for watching the road. It was a hot sunny day. We slept in a tea tree plantation that night and were attacked by a vicious tropical storm. We're dry though thanks to a super camping spot between two spiky trees.