The City Of Dawn and then beyond..

Jonghong means 'the city of Dawn'. It is the capital of Xishwanbana and a pretty relaxed town. It was nice to chill out here for a few days after trekking.. Well I got a bit of a cough/chest cold - I think coming back on the bus, so it was enforced rest! The city has lots of gardens and I spent one day riding out to nearby villages and temples before hanging around the city parks and gardens. Some of them had way too many Chinese tourists so I missed them out, but it was good relaxing.
Eventually I decided it was time to leave China. I will miss traffic lights with count-down timers, rubbish trucks that play much better tunes than Mr Whippy (so people will run out with their rubbish!), and yummy food but theres lots I won't miss too - Mostly noisey, noisely people!
So to Laos it was, due to not being 100% fit I thought I would be relaxed about heading for the border which meant spending the night in the town of Mengla near the border.. This was not a nice town to spend my last night in China in - particularly the Karoke bar in my hotel which was full of drunk men screaming into a microphone until much too late in the night!
I did get some last minute help to get some passport photos for my Laos visa just before the bus left, but then the border crossing was really easy.
I arrived in Luang Nam Tha around lunchtime and had a relaxing arvo to truely shake the cough. I thought a Herbal Sauna would help but the place I went to didn't have sauna yesterday, and I got talked into a Laos Massage instead... I don't think I'll be rushing back to them again - my nipples are still really sore today and I feel a little bit used...!
Today I've been biking around the area through local villages and looking at some of the local Stupa's. Laos is really relaxed. Well up here it is... It's a lot like a country town and everyone and everything is really relaxed. The town was dead at 9.30pm last night which was quite nice too.
There are many minority groups around and their local costumes look great. Some of them are the same people's that I saw whilst treking in China, so there is a bit of cross-over between the countries. I have been contemplating a trek here too, the turn-offs are the cost (treks get cheaper the larger the group - I am 1!) and also that many of the tourists are 'older', so that means the group treks are of the easy variety which I have a problem spending money on. Maybe I'll get a motorbike and see what I can find anyway!