The land crossing from Laos into China gave me a bit of a sphincter workout. Â The border official saw that I had repeatedly gone in and out of China in the last few years and asked me a bunch of questions. Â First, he just wanted to get to know me. Â He even asked me who my father is, and what does he do. Â Then he called his boss, who immediately started bragging about their new learning computers, with neural net processors, designed to sniff out miscreants like me. Â In an unexpectedly friendly turn, he offered me a box of donuts. Â As I reached for one, his stern expression returned. Â If I wasn’t being completely honest, he threatened, I’d better leave enough room for his fist, because he was looking forward to ramming into my stomach. Â I felt like puking all over his pig face at that point, but as a show of good faith, I stuffed the whole donut in my mouth and wolfed it down, doing my best to smile brightly the whole time.
For what seemed like hours, I sat there waiting with my ass clenched so tight you couldn’t squeeze a greased bb up there. Â Finally, he came back with a grin and handed me my passport. Â As I stood up, finally relaxing my butt cheeks and inadvertently expelling a huge air biscuit, Â he gave me a hearty smack between my shoulder blades. Â “Welcome to China, Mr. ___.”
By the time I got through, the bus had left and I had to hire a motorcycle to catch up to it. Â Fortunately, everything worked out and I arrived safely in Mengla, a town in southern Yunnan province.
A few kilometers from downtown Mengla is a well-designed little nature reserve and park called Skytree, or 望天樹.  It features a protected area of primary rainforest which is home to the endangered Parashorea chinensis Wang Hsie, a tropical tree endemic to this region.
