LIJIANG AND THE TLG

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forgot to mention that Katie had her ears cleaned in a tea house in chengdu. Which was minging esp when the man insisted on showing me her earwax every time. love of my life??? (katie: actually it felt really nice when he was doing it, I didn't enjoy the bit when he took great pleasure in showing both me and Michael my ear wax though!)

4th oct arrived in lijang
5th oct explored the old town of lijang but had to put up with every 3rd shop playing the same beeping song, NA DE DA DE DA DE DA. go on sing it, get it stuck in your head, feel our pain!!! my favorite part of lijang at this point is when we stopped to look at a map on the wall and i asked katie to move a step closer to me. she looked at me slightly confused but did as i asked, she then turned roud and could understand why.
a small boy was next to her, about 1/2 inch away, peeing on the floor whilst his mum watched. i would like to point out there was a toilet 5 yards away from us. as we tutted and gave her a evil she replied with a stare what said so what!

6th oct SUNBURN
katie had a great idea. yep she did. it was to bike to the surrounding villages of lijang. so we paid 60y for our bikes and after dodging the crazy chinese traffic we made it to a very beautiful resivour and spent some time there before cycling up a dual carriage way (beautiful view of the jade snow mountains) to the village. the best part of this was when we gave 5y to a local naxi band who were asking for money for there "charity". they then gave us a instrument and asked us to play a song with them.

after our moment of fame we headed to the village of suhe which was similar to lijang. 5 hours later we returned to our hostel and katie was like a lobster and had lovely strap lines (from her backpack) on her back. so after applying a whole bottle of aloe vera we went out for meat on a stick (Michael's faviourite thing about China is buying meat on a stick!). later that night we learnt a great chinese card game called how fast can you run. We were taught by a volunteer who was working in our hostel. She has amazing English and is really helpful. She enjoyed teaching us the game and kept calling us "cute"

7th oct booked TLG and watched a film (batman dark night).

8th oct TLG
Beep beep up at 06.30 showered and raring(ish) to go. Luckily we weren't feeling as bad as three others in our hostel who were going on the trek who had been out drinking with some locals the night before. Our bus arrived after we had eaten breakfast and then 3 hours of extremely painful songs were blasted out at us on the way to the start of our trek. Also much of the ride was over extremely bumpy ground, still that wasn't as bad as the music (trust us on this one!) There were 4 others from our hostel in total: Jeff (American guy) married to Alex (English woman) and her brother Chris, living and working in Hong Kong and then "V" a 22 year old Australian with Indian heritage who was very funny (expect some cracking quotes from him). We all decided to stick together. So off we set with an old Naxi man on a very tired looking donkey following us. The old man's hope being that we would goive up and ask for a ride on the donkey. (seriously this donkey looked like it was already dying, and did not need our fat bodies on top if it to finish it off) However at times on the way up it was almost tempting! A few minutes along the trek we found a sign pointing up so we followed it up soem very very steep paths/roads for about 30 minutes or so. At this point Iwe were wondering whether we would be able to do this trek as we had been told that the "easy bit" was at the start of the trek and that the really hard part would come later when we hit the famous "28 bends" I may have been a little bit pathetic at this point (Michael kept me motivated) Also luckily Jeff had a great way of motivating us!! He told us that as a kid at school he had a PE teacher who asked the pupils every morning (in cheesy American accent) "What's our blood type people?" To whihc the pupils were made to answer "B positive Sir!" So with Jeff taking the role of the tecaher we used this as our motto to get us up the road past some very small villages and lots of farmland, until we reached a fork in the road...this was not expected,we had been told there would be arrows to follow and that it would be pretty straight forward..... "Oh S***!" After 5 minutes of discussion we decided it was best to head back and ask a local villager (luckily Chris speaks Mandarin). So we asked several different people and we stil didn't know what to do, as all of them were telling us that we were going the wrong way and it looked like we were going to need to head back to the strat of the trek...not a tempting prospect. Whilst we were talking to and all gesturing with the different locals, there were about 5 of them and obviously Chris couldn't talk to all of them, two Israelian girls who had been on our bus came up behind us and a few Koreans were 20 minutes behind them, so it would seem lots of people go the wrong way. Anyway after some discussion us 6 agreed to let a local take us to a guesthouse which was supposed to be on our route and where we were hoping to get to for lunch. We agreed we would pay him 100yuan between us if he got us there. The Israelian girls opted to carry on going up the path on their own. We set off with our "guide" off the beaten track...oh dear! He took us through the mountains on a trail which was right off the cliff side and about 15cm wide, but the secnery was breathtaking. We were walking up and down a crumbling cliff side, surrounded by greenery and farmland and bulls/ox/donkleys with bells on (probably so that the farmers can find them). Suddenly we ground to a halt by the guide who had picked up a big stick which he was waving around and then we saw a huge green snake. He whacked the snake and then jumped over it and was gesturing for us to do the same and telling us to be quick so we knew it musst be apretty dangerius snake. So one at a time we ran faster and jumpoed higher then anyone who was at the Beijing olympics (by the way I don't know if you know but Beijing hosted the Olympics in 2008, god are they proud of this fact, we definitely know now!!) After this we continued on the path jumping over mini ditches and ducking under huge yellow/green/red spiders' (mummy Miller and Elley would not have liked these) webs. Lcukily Chris was at the front so he walked into most of the webs first! We reached a corn field and we walked in between huge sunflower plants, we alked on hoping a farmer didn't come out with a shot gun, but soonwe arrived at the guesthouse as promised. Stage one comple "B+ Sir!" (2 and half hours of trekking complete, 5 hours to go!) We had some rubbish rice and coke and set off of the 28 bends!

During this part we all had to remind each other to look up every now nd then to see the most amazing views we had ever seen. WE carried on up the path, dodging bulls, horses,donkeys,yaks and all their poo. We then hit the first bend (so we thought) and climbed a bit further before seeing a lady selling drinks and food, who happily told us that we had not in fact hit the first bend and that it was quite a bit further to the start of the bends...sad face....(what's our blood type??) When we did reach the bends we struggled up slowly, stopping after every 3rd bend and taking in the scenery.

When we got to the top it was worth it - it was stunning - we were all breathless but loved the view. WE still had a bit further to walk before we reached our guesthouse, but the whole route was beautiful-overlooking the river and the gorge along with stunning views of Jade Snow mountaion. We stopped along the way at one guesthouse before eventuly reaching our guesthouse at 6pm before sunset. Again the view from the guesthouse was amazing. Only 3pound each a night and we got to watch the sunset on the mountain, from the terrace and from the toilets! Luckily there was hot water as well so we could clean our very very smelly sweaty bodies.

We spent the the night eating on the trerace and the usual pub talk started up, mainly strated by V who was "up for" chasing down some young Naxi women "I'm up for pecking some Naxi women" and he decided that he shoudl wear bells (as the Naxi women often wear bells, as do the animals) and that he would knock on doors with Chris and he would ask Chris to ask the farmers if they "had daughters" and "how many marks out of 10 would they give them!!..." Lucky, lucky Naxi girls! Fortunately for the safety oif these girls and the reputation of Western men, Chris did not agree to this and so V had to go to bed early and alone!

Luck had it that team B+ were all in the same dorm so alarms were set ready to get up for sunrise. Unfortunately it was abit cloudy so it was a pretty rubbish sunrise! But as were up we ordereed breakfast of naxi bread and eggs (these eggs repeated on me all the way down the trek...tasty??!!)

After breakfast we left and set off behind some very smelly middle aged men and women, we pushed past them and the thought of keeping away from the smell helped us tp keep up a good pace. Today was the easy day (down hill supposedly) and on our way a game called poo golf was invented by Chris. The game was simple, hit animal poo off the cliff with a bamboo stick, one who hits it furthest wins (very manly!!) The game was luckily cut short by the smelly people fast approaching. We carried on walking, crossing waterfalls until we reached a very steep drop which took us an hour to slowly get down with only me falling over (as Michael said luckily I only slipped onto my big bottom).

We made it eventually to the place where we could get a bus back to Lijiang and like idiot we decided to head down to the middle gorge. So again we headed off with a B+ attitude, sun shining and aching legs.

Again this was no easy task as we spent 1 half hours going down on our bottoms most of the way (for safety reasons). When we got to bottom of the climb the cheeky little gits charged us 5Yuan each to get to the rock overlooking the gorge. WE paid and sat on the rock dreading the hike back up. We were at the bottom at 1.30 pm and had to be back at Tina's for 4pm to catch the pn;ly bus back to Lijiang.

Team B+ headed back up, panting and wheezing climbing up th big rocks a few "Ican't do it"'s were said by someone who I cannot name. But after a slap round the face and a cheer up chant we all made it. Thankf ully we got back to Tina's with plenty of time and had some food a few drinks and a game of cards called "arsehole" which Candian Matt taught us......I cannot tell you who was the "arsehole" but someone was extremely smug as the "president" and thoroughly enjoyed humiliating the "arsehole!!"

In all honesty TLG was one of the best expereinces of our lives. We then got the slowest bus back (only driver in china who does not drive fast and we got him when we wanted to get back so we could shower!) After we eventually got back we showered and then Team B+ went out for a few well desrved drinks whilst we listened to some of V's stories before going out for dinner and a disco dance????

As we wandered down into Lijiang V continued to tell us why he was a "delicacy" for Chinese ladies because he is "half Indian and so I'm darker" and therefore he was not just "run of the mill" like us "white people who they see in the films everyday". We had a nice dinner whilst we were entertained by V attempting to chat up the restaurant owner's daughter and accidentally telling the owner (50+ year old man) that he was "cute" in chinese.

The night continued in this way with V providing the entertainment for all - warning the men in thr group that they shouldn't give him any more alcohol or he would "steal their women"

We saw the night clubs of Lijiang whch were hilarious playing dodgy dance music of the 90's (this area was very very loud and in complete contrast to what Lijiang was like the rest of the time and even further away fromt he peaceful serene envirnment which we had enjoyed at the gorge, but was still very entertaining. We all decided it was safer to have a quiet drink back at the hostel before we headed to bed.

Next day we just chilled out and mooched around Lijiang. My legs were in agony- having seized up over night so I was walking like a cowboy out of a western...who had soiled themselves!! We did have a vey yummy Chicken burger at a restaurant called N's kitchen, one of the best burgers ever and we had it in china!!!



In the evening we just watched a film "dinner for Schmucks" (hilarious by the way) Before going to bed early ready to fly to Kunming the next morning.......to be continued!!

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