Where to next?

Here is a view of the river from a little boat trip I took the other day.

Well the china climb season is winding down we have a big end of the year party tomorrow, and then all go our somewhat separate ways. Looks like many of us will be bumping into each other all over Asia for the nexy few months with most of us ending up in Karabi Thailand at one point or another for more climbing. It is a VREY popular winter climbing destination on the beach in southern Thailand.
I leave Nov 29th on a train for Kunming. Will stay probably one day, then head up to tiger leaping gorge by bus with some chinaclimb people, stay there a few days, then to Xishuangbanna in southern china on the border with Laos (Chinese Visa expires Dec 11th). I will spend a few days in and around Xishuangbanna then cross the border into Laos and spend about 2 weeks travelling over land through Laos. ross the border into Thailand hopefully at the Mekong River in northwest Laos (by Christmas) and on to Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. All of these areas have "hill tribes" of people living a more traditional mountain farming lifestyle with many of the interesting costumes, customs, and difficult to access villages that come with that. So this leg of the trip will hopefully involve some treking if my knee can take it, or some time on horse or elephant back if it can't.
I will spend some time in Northern Thailand;Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, and Pai. I hope to take a thai massage course there, and then work my way down to Karabi in southern Thailand where most of the Chinaclimb staff will be :-)