The Chinese Spring Festival (or Chinese New Year to westerners) is the biggest public holiday in the Chinese calendar (incidentally, it’s now the Year of the Tiger). Every year Chinese people go back to their parents to celebrate with their families, leaving huge metropolises like Beijing bizarrely ghost town-esque and devoid of life. It’s also an excellent chance for us expats to take a break from city life and go on a tour of China, or at least part of China anyway. This year, Hannah and I decided to go to Yunnan Province in the south west of China; it borders Laos, Vietnam and Burma (or should that be Myanmar? – I can never remember) and has lovely tropical weather, so we’d be feeling an early burst of summer sun, as well as escape from the freezing temperatures of Beijing (honestly, it’s still brass monkeys here, although it’s getting less cold every day) ...   more »