Air conditioning. Aaah!

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Well it took a record breaking 1 day and with another page taken up in the passport I have an extra 30 days in China, however I will not be using all of them and this country is just too big for just a 30 stay visa. For a person who hates form filling and tries to avoid it at all costs it was pretty straight forward, shame that can't be said for finding the building that I needed to go to.

I vow now to burn Lonely Planet at the first opportunity. The address it gave and which I first went to had been closed down for some time, the men in a hut promptly gave me a card and told me to go to another government building, on arriving there and another hut and another card was promptly thrusted into my hand and I was sent to a 3rd government building and with more wandering around I had finally found it, but guess what it was 11.50 and it was their lunch break at 12.00. Ok, have to say spent a lovely hour sitting in their blissfully air-conditioned office an absolute relief to get out of the searing heat. So one 2 sided A4 form to fill in and £15 later I was told to come back at 4pm the following day.

So the next day chomping at the passport bit I was one hour early and hey presto I had my newly up-dated visa. Yipee! So now onward forward to Lijeng which is the gateway for the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek but before that I have an overnight train and an 8 hour bus ride (which is hilly and on bendy roads) . One other thing the humidity is a complete knock out and the further south I go the worse it is so the situation is only going to get worse and getting train tickets are getting very difficult as it is going into the Chinese peak holiday season but I did manage to get mine on what they call the black market, ohh I love the dodginess of it all, so at least I am onthe move and I have managed to acquire a sleeper where the only tickets which seemed to be left are the standing and nope, not a chance for an overnight journey.

So hopefully next time I will have tales of mystical legends and hiking, thanks for reading take care all.

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