"Too posh to squat"

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We left Kunming and arrived in Jianshui early afternoon. We took a public bus which was fairly easy and arrived in another hectic town where we were stared at by all the locals. Ling was trying to get us on a bus but they were so busy, we gave up and got into taxi’s to transfer to our accomodation. When we arrived, we were greeted with a street that resembled ancient China. Unknown to me, Ling told us that Jianshui is a famous ancient city. Our guest house was a beautiful old building with a court yard (pictures to follow) all our rooms were big old wooden doors that we were ale to open right up. The guest house also provided laundry (a real plus for me!)We explored the town in the afternoon and tried a few more of the local dishes (please note that I will NOT be wanting Chinese food for some time after this!)
The following day, we visited a traditional village which was around 40 minutes away from the main town. We stopped on the way to see an ancient bridge that was damaged in war. Mark asked Jenny (from our tour group) if she could take our photo on the bridge and out of no where, two chinese girls and a guy stepped in and joined us! Ling said it was because of my hair they wanted photos.

The old village was beautiful. Full of court yards, paintings, shrines etc. We were also given lunch cooked by a retired teacher living in the village which again was superb. Whilst walking around the village, I couldnt help but notice that the older ladies had very tiny feet. This is because when they were children, their feet would have been bound in bandages to stop them growing. It means that they are well educated.
In the evening, we went for dinner where we all ordered our own dishes instead of Ling doing it for us. Rob, from our group decided to try the “chicken in some sauce” and was presented with chicken meat, chillies, rice and....a chicken foot. Nice. Ling then tried to teach us a game that resembles poker in China....I’m still not 100% on the rules!

The squat toilet remains a high topic of conversation. They really are horrible. In fact, our moto for them has become that we are, “too posh to squat.” However, there is something worse and it’s called a gutter. When we were due to leave China, we were waiting at a bus station when I decided to use to loo. When I walked in, I found it was a gutter seperated into sections down one side of the wall with NO doors. You simple squated and did your business in front of everyone.
We took the public bus and arrived in Vietnam early afternoon. We then boarded another bus to be taken to Sapa, a mountin town that was ruled by the french for many years. It looked like a ski resort but instead of skiing, the sport is trekking. Our driver on the way up to Sapa was crazy. We were driving up a winding hill with no support on the edge in the heavy fog and he still insisted on driving fast and over taking. He nearly caused a crash half way up and just drove off. However, despite being scared to my core on the way up, the reward was worth it. Not for the views though as it was too foggy to see anything but Sapa had an english pub, sausage and mash, wine, cake...I could go on...it was heaven. Ling had decided that we would do our trek the day after so we had more free time in Sapa and so the following morning we began a trek to the village of Ban Ho. As soon as we had got off the bus, a crowd of ladies gathered round with their bags and braclets chanting, “you buy from me?” They then followed us for around half the journey. This was useful as we were unaware how muddy and dangerous it was going to be. We each had two ladies each who became our “little helpers” guiding us through the mud until we reached a water fall where they sold us bits and pieces. The views on the trek were amazing and yet we still feel our pictures dont do it justice. We arrived in Ban Ho, in the afternoon and I was surprised to see they had electricity seeing as my last trek in Thailand, we had nothing. The villagers made us a meal and cracked open soem tiger beers before doing a “culture show” for us and inviting us up to demonstrate pieces from our own culture. The Brits ended up doing the Spice Girls (Maybe football would have been better?!) After the show, they put on the karaoke machine and the guide put on the spice girls for us brits and handed me the mic. Instead of shying away like I would do, I grabbed it and sang (or shouted) my heart out and put out my best dance moves. There is a video evidence!!

We arrived back in Sapa the following day and were greeted with the news that there was no electricity meaning cold showers and no heating. It was like this until we left which was unfortunate because by the time we left, we were all feeling fed up from the cold. We took another bus down the mountin this time in the fog and the pitch black. However, the driver was much better than the last. We then boarded an overnight train to Hanoi arriving this morning (8th Jan). Hanoi is loud and manic but enoyable. We went to watch the water puppet show this afternoon but were not hughly impressed by it. Tomorrow, some of our group leaves us and we will also say good bye to Ling as she will taking another group back up to Hong Kong. We will be very sad to see her go. Tomorrow we will meet our new tour leader and possibly new people for our group. Tonight we are all out on the town (more drinking!)

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