Here is a photo from last May, on the day my Aunt Anita and I embarked from Ponferrada to walk the pilgrimage trail. We were confused about where the trail began when we met these horse officers right at the break between the city and the country. I was so excited at the blessing of horses on our first day!Anyway, my Aunt and godmother is now on a new adventure, traveling through Asia. Here is a post that she left on November 8th, during her travels!
Friends and Family - hope this goes through. Don't know if you got my earlier unfinished message. Too tired to start all over again. Started this trip from Jinghong Yunnan Province China - will travel 4880 km on the Mekong River to the Mekong Delta. First leg was through southern China and Burma. It is uninhabitated because of the steep gorges along the river. Lots of rapids along the way. It's beautiful, like traveling through an untouched national park. It is mostly rain forest in the Chinese part of the river so very dense lush vegetation. That will change as we go further down the river. The Chinese boat will take us as far as Thailand. We'll get another boat there to take us to the border of Laos and Cambodia and then a Vietnamese boat will take us the rest of the way. I am with a group from the Mekong River Commission which is an non-governmental agency funded by the United Nations Development Bank and the World Bank to study the Mekong River. Member nations are Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. China won't join b/c they are building dams on the river and don't want to answer to anyone for their activities. Burma does whatever China says so they aren't a member nation either. My fellow travelers - eight with me - are five women and three men. Two New Zealander graduate students specializing in fertilizers etc, a fish biologist from Vietnam (a woman), a Lao woman who is an economic development expert in the region and heads the MRC in Vientiene Laos where they are headquartered. Two Australians forestry experts or I should say de-foresting experts studying the effects of the deforesting of the region, and a British guy who has lived in the region more than twenty years and speaks passable Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese. Lots of commotion when we left Jinghong. The Chinese government officials gave us an official sendoff, raised the Chinese flag, we applauded, boarded the boat and then were on our way. First day was a long one b/c there is no place to stop so we went for 12 hours before getting to the Chinese border. Got gas there and then crossed the river to the Burma (Myanmar) side to show them our traveling documents. They have been translated into six languages so that every country's border officials can read them. Went on into Laos for the night. The next day we stopped in Burma to meet with government officials. They took us to a Buddhist temple (the most important building in the town) and we paid our respects. Off again after a few hours. Burma is a very poor country and very isolated from the rest of the world b/c of their military government. The Buddhist monks are protesting the government's raising the price of gasoline. This is an amazing experience for me - learning a lot about the economic impact that China has on the little countries that are its neighbor to the south. Perhaps the destruction of the Mekong is inevitable. By the way, Yunnan Province is breathtakingly beautiful. A mixture of Han Chinese, ethic minorities and Chinese Muslims - makes for a very interesting melting pot and great food. I'm doing fine except for a nagging sore throat. I bought an antibiotic in Jinghong but it doesn't seem to be working (or at least I think it is an antibiotic). The weather was cold when we got to Jinghong as it is at 3000 m. Once we left China it immediately warmed up as we fell a couple thousand meters. The rest of the trip will be hot! That's it for now. Will try to email again from Laos. Everything is going well. My favorite traveling companion is the Vietnamese woman whose name is Phoung. She makes us all laugh and is a great storyteller. She is also studying bees and so we have to find bee hives wherever we are so she can talk to the beekeepers and see if they are experiencing any colony collapses yet. It is a worldwide problem, not just in US. Hope this reaches you. Love, Anita