July 20th: Flight home
In the morning we left for the airport through the hectic streets of Kunming. We were told the population is made of many 1st generation drivers and it was wild watching cars drift between lanes, make turns through bunches of traffic and generally drive as if they were the only vehicle on the road.
Our flight to Beijing was uneventful and once we arrived we had plenty of time to grab a nice meal, explore the mammoth airport and secure emergency row seats for our 12hr flight back to LA. After landing and passing through customs, I bid farewell to David, Christine and Andy and caught a red-eye flight to Boston to complete my 32hrs+ of travel. Due to crossing so many time zones I had the rare experience of a 36hr birthday beginning in Kunming and ending on a plane somewhere over the middle of America.