Yunnan Province

We have just returned from a 5 day tour of the Yunnan province.  The long bus rides were tedious at times but the pay off at our destinations were well worth the road time.  The kids may say differently but I think they will actually look back on those long bus rides fondly someday.   I taught them euchre.
We had a local tour guide and a Gaoxin teacher come along.  The tour guide spoke English well enough but was not very confident in her English language skills.  When the students did not respond with 100% interest and attention she would think it was because she was not being understood.  This caused her some stress but she adjusted well and the kids gave her some encouragement.  The Gaoxin teacher was the younger PE teacher here, he smokes like a chimney.  He was lovingly given the name Young G. He was a great travel companion and the kids really liked him.  He did not speak much English at all.  Which overall was not an issue because he was willing to engage with the kids and speak Chinese to them.  He was also very patient with me as I stumbled through the little Chinese I could muster. 
The sights of Yunnan are hard to put words to and the pictures, I am afraid, do not do them justice.  The flora reminded me of the Rocky Mountains.  The villages felt very old but not run down.  You could tell that much the village was there for us tourists but that did not matter because it was a brand of tourism that seemed very genuine.  The handcrafts and the silver work was made on site by the person you bargained with and ultimately paid.  Lijiang village had this really cool series of small canals and streams weaving in and out of the streets  Very beautiful and functional.  The water was a cool site, but we also learned that the area was in the middle of a 2 year drought!  There was evidence of this everywhere, several pools and ponds were emptied to maintain the agriculture that was everywhere.  Seriously everywhere, every patch of land that could be irrigated was being used and even with the drought the gardens were lush.  Domesticated animals just roamed around and seemed to follow their owners to and from the fields.  Check out the photos link for pictures of Yunnan.  I added captions to almost all the photos.
Cheers!