Touring Tengchong with our new friends
July 1 – being tourists in Tengchong
Today was a later start as we were to meet at 8:30 in the lobby, but exhausted no one made it down before 9am, which was fine as we didn’t leave until 9:30.
Our first stop was at the volcano center, nearly 45 minutes from our hotel. Tengchong county is a volcano region with 99 volcanos in the area, although none of them are active. The most recent eruption was over 1,000 years ago. Having visited many volcanos around the world, the visit wasn’t super interesting for our family, but getting out for some walking was enjoyable enough despite the light rain. 
Our second stop was a photo op of a huge cluster of columnar basalt. The hillside had worn away so you could clearly see how it had been in the process of erupting when it cooled for some reason forming the classic hexagonal shapes. The kids recognized the shapes as the same ones we had seen at The Giants Causeway in Ireland during our 2015 trip to Ireland.
Our third stop was lunch overlooking a large wetlands. Lunch took a long time to arrive, but we enjoyed chatting with our new friends while the kids entertained each other with video games and spinning the ubiquitous tabletop lazy Susan. When lunch arrived it was delicious, like virtually all meals in China. The fish was fresh as were all of the vegetables. The mushrooms were especially good and seem to be a specialty of the region. Midway through our meal an elderly lady arrived selling flowered crowns. Of course, we needed a picture as well!
After lunch we decided to skip visiting the wetlands and avoid paying the $15.00 entrance fee. That decision was validated as we drove by and saw visitors snapping photos in front of plastic statues of wetland birds.
Our next stop was at a collection of geothermal pool connected by a lovely walkway. The most welcome sight came right at the entrance – an ATM machine! Few businesses accept credit cards as the majority of people pay with either cash or wechat pay. WeChat’s clever and reliable system relies on QR codes (which are cheap and easy to print) rather than the cumbersome, ineffective and expensive electronic Apple Pay readers in the US. Unfortunately, non-Chinese cannot access this system as it requires a Chinese bank account. As a result we had burned through all our cash 2 days ago and hadn’t seen an ATM since. Two withdrawals of 3,000 RMB ($450) had Sue’s wallet bulging and we paid off our various debts.
While the pools aren’t as spectacular as the ones we had seen last summer in Yellowstone, the walk was enjoyable. Once again, we managed to avoid the crush of visitors and the park wasn’t overcrowded. We later learned that only two flights had managed to land in Tengchong the day before, perhaps reducing the number of visitors to the region. A highlight of the park was the Big Pot Hot Springs where an enterprising lady had set up a stall selling food steam cooked by the thermal vents. The Big Pot was surrounded by 12 small statues of the Chinese zodiac, so we took our pictures near our individual animals. Tom – horse, Sue – monkey, Evie – rooster, Tyler – dog.
At the end of our visit we got to walk past a massive jade store. Clearly the most popular souvenir of the region, jade is brought across the border from Burma but the whole time we have been here we have not seen a purchase made by other by our group or anyone else.
Back at our hotel around 6:30, we rested until reconvening in the lobby to head out to dinner. Dinner was a Yunnan style hot pot which was much less spicy and very enjoyable. Still, hot pot is our least favorite style of Chinese cooking as it lacks the flavors we enjoy. The dinner conversation was lively as we sat with John who is a venture capitalist focused on bio tech. We discussed the evolution of civilization, the advancement of math in Asia, the US political system, the needs of rural schools and evolution of Chinese industry.
At 9:30, Tyler and Tom walked back to the hotel while Sue and Evie stayed behind to do some shopping. At 10:30, everyone was asleep except for Sue who was up until 1am dealing with last minute house issues in California. Did we mention that while traveling our tenants from SF were moving out on July 1? This necessitated scheduling remote check-out, arranging painting, booking floor specialists, and hiring carpet cleaners. As you might imagine, this work fell squarely on Sue’s capable shoulders.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to another group of friends we’ve made in China. It is always dangerous to make generalizations about an entire country, but we can safely say that everyone we have met in China has been truly warm, generous and kind.