Hrmmm.. certain health complications arose in Mengla that I wont go into great detail about, but despite this I attempted to stave it off by eating only biscuits, and drinking water and orange cordial, which is what Chinese seem to think is fruit juice. I was still following the Xi Xiao expressway for the first part of the day, and I wouldnt recommend it mainly due to the tunnels. The first few are relatively short, but I spent thirty minutes walking through a 2-3km tunnel, and then decided I couldnt do anymore, so began looking for the old highway, the 214. Apart from the tunnels, the expressway is quite safe, its so new and flat, really a great road, and there isnt much traffic so if you dont mind trapsing around in the dark for a few hours each day, in some places it might be an option if the old roads are bad. The scenery is much nicer on the 214 in this region though, it would be no exaggeration to say it was the most beautiful area of forest I have seen on the trip so far. The 214 takes you right through the Xishuangbanna nature reserve, where apparently tigers and wild elephants still roam. Given the density of the forest I can definately believe this is possible, but its also very likely any tigers have been killed for use in Chinese medicine. * The more I found out about Chinese medicine, the more absurd some and impractical some the cures sounded. Attempting to service a population of over 1 billion with rare animal tinctures is completely crazy and wrong, yet this style of treatment is still the most widespread. I dont really have a problem with their philosophy of balancing the 'chi' to deal with minor imbalances, but some traditional medicines must be discontinued.
Around 2pm I made it to Meng-something, possibly Mengyang?. It was actually quite nice, there was a separate old town area with stone buildings, and further along was a forest park where it seemed I might be able to find accomodation or camp. I then wasted some time making enquiries and riding to non existent accomodations the park staff had suggested. On my way back to the park for the second time I met two Swedish guys, about my age, both cycling towards Dali and beyond. It was good to have riding companions so I decided to push on all the way to Menglun with them. They also revealed to me the ultimate riding food for disease riddled China; compressed army biscuits. They look like pieces of MDF (chipboard), and taste like wood fibre with added sugar. But they fill you up, give you slow release energy and I experienced zero bowel motions in 4 days while eating them, so I wasnt complaining.
* I just read upon returning to Australia, that the last known tiger in the Xishuangbanna nature reserve was killed and eaten by a villager in December 2009. The man was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for the crime.
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