The Buddha's Footprint and Free Bananas

After a few days resting up in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, and catching up once more with our French and English friends, my friends and I headed south to Xishuangbanna, the corner of China that borders Laos and Burma.  While the rest of China is predominantly Han Chinese, "Banna" is only about 1/3 Han.  Another third of the population here is Dai, a group closely related to Thai people, while the rest of the people living in Xishuangbanna is a mix of various traditions, languages, colors and foods.  After several months in a very homogenous, very temperate China, arriving in such a diverse and tropical place made us question whether we were even still in China.

Banana Trees outside in Xishuangbanna

After Leshan, the pandas and the Tiger Leaping Gorge, not to mention two overnight buses and one overnight train, we were all looking forward to relaxing and taking a few days easy.  There is no better place for a few lazy days in the sun that Xishuangbanna.  We stayed in the city of Jinghong and spent a few days exploring nearby towns. 
One day, we went to the town of Da Meng Long, only a few kilometers from the Burmese border.  In fact, our guidebook warned us not to accidentally cross the border.  We walked a bit along a road lined with banana farms before coming to another small village and hiking up to the White Bamboo Shoot Pagoda, which is famous for the footprint that the Buddha left there. 

Beautiful writing that we think is Dai script

While we couldn't find the Buddha's footprint, the pagoda and surrounding village was still beautiful and it had the added charm of seeming to be forgotten and lost in the forest.  After leaving the pagoda, we walked down to the village near the road and bought two "jin" of bananas for two kuai. 
Yesterday, before leaving Xishuangbanna, we were searching for somewhere to eat and struggling to find a restaurant or any street food.  Finally we stumbled across a room with three or four tables in it, a large fridge and two friendly ladies chatting outside.  We were shown a fridge full of various vegetables and meats, and we pointed to a few different ones, not really sure what would happen.

Lunch?

 I tried to watch the women preparing our food, but it was difficult to see what they were doing.  After about fifteen minutes, they started bringing out dishes of vegetables and rice, including one of our favorite dishes, fried egg and tomato.  I guess there was nothing to worry about, because it was all very delicious and cheap, and none of us have gotten sick yet.