It makes us want to pull our hair out! We are on a 11-month tour and obviously have enough time ... but well, believe it or not, we would love to have even more time! China is such a big country that we have to get off the bicycles and make use of public transportation. Now being in only one single province of China, i.e. Yunnan, you would think that we could see all sights and interesting places. No! It's a hard decision but we have to ditch many things. Initially we planned to cycle along the Myanmar border from Tengchong to Jinghong via Ruili and Menga, but as we are running out of time, we'll cycle straight from Dali to Jinghong via Lincang.
Also Vietnam has to come someday later. Instead of cycling from China into Vietnam and then to Cambodia, we'll cross Laos on the way to Cambodia. Why is that? Well, we heard so many times from other travelers that Laos is a lot nicer than Vietnam, that we got convinced. Stories about cycling in Laos sound even better, so we'll give it a try. One more advantage: we don't have to go to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, to get the Vietnamese visa, Laos issues visa on arrival.
That's the plan at the moment. We wish we had more time :-)
