The Village

On we trudged.

Eventually we could see a road in the distance and we knew that once we reached it we would be on our way to the village..sanity..sleep and a good wash.

We just had to get down the slope.. I am pretty sure I did some of it backwards.

Safely on the road we all had a group hug and the dried mud from my arse was brushed off.. it's on video and I think it looks similar to a sandstorm.

Sandy sat herself down on a farmer's wall that had been constructed carefully from broken parts of the wall. As we watched one boulder fell.. followed by another part, and another part until suddenly the whole part of the wall fell into the road.

Looking at each other in horror we turned to our guide Peter - he looked at us and then the wall and shouted " RUN"

Waking into the village we noticed lots of immaculate little dogs in the backyard. There were one or two larger guard dogs tied up but mostly lots of well-groomed small dogs that looked as pampered to hell.

We asked Peter why this was and got the response

" We keep small dogs as they are too boney to eat. Dog, yum yum"

prompting a slap from the veggies in the group as he ran away giggling... Maybe the red meat was actually Redsetter

Some of the others had got to the village before us and saluted us into the village with raised poles and bottles of beer... very well deserved beers.

How would I describe the local village house??It was very clean and welcoming but it was also very basic. Drop toilets and basins outside to wash your hands and a shower that I am pretty sure was not used by anyone.

As you can imagine by this point I was beyond minging.

I took off my red head scarf and quickly put my hat on for the safety of others....

Grabbing my bag I headed for the room but on opening the door I realised that it was impossible for six people to stand in the room at the same time. It would need to be done on shifts. At any given time only three people had enough room to stand on the floor...

From what I have learnt we stayed in a typical chinese village accomodation. You sleep on a long tiled " bed" which is heated to keep you warm. We also had sand pillows. Six if us were all lined up together in our sleeping bags - it woud be a cosy night to say the least.

That night we ate like Kings and some ended up doing an improvised assault course in the courtyard. We were looked at like we were mad... and to be honest I think most people would have looked at us this.

I discovered Harpic's secret power that night - the ability to guess charades with hardly any clues eg film seven words " The good, the Bad and the Ugly". No contest....

It was bloody cold outside but it was like Barbados on that bed and that was before the thermals and the sleeping bag. At one point I wondered if we had wandered into a hostel type scenario and we were actually being slow cooked and would end up in a stew the next day.

The lovely lady lying next to me snored but Harpic thought it was me so as I was getting to sleep she nudged me in the ribs..

I can honestly say it was one of the worst nights sleeps I have ever had in my life. I had barely any sleep, I was grumpy, tired and weak, minging and had no option but to repeat the day as a Hulk Hogan lookalike...

It looked like it was going to be a long day....