Hanging Wiv Da Hippies

Life's certainly got easier lately :-) Instead of being at freezing cold high altitude towns with rough and ready accommodation and infrastructure, I'm now in tropical Yunnan hanging with the hippies sampling the local herbs.

After whacking my head we moved on to the town of Lijang, heart of the Naxi ethnic minority tribe. A nice relaxed place. We stayed in a place called Mama's Naxi. Quite an experience, Mama Naxi was quite a character. Like tucking you up in bed, fussing over you, kissing and hugging you goodbye, a right livewire. My head wound has healed sufficiently at last to take all bandages and plasters off and let nature do its healing work. So thats all sorted.

Monday started trekking the Tiger Leaping Gorge with 5 others I met in Lijang, all good fun people, English, Scottish and Dutch. Intended maybe 2 days, but took 4 days to do it, as did it at a very slow place, stopping frequently to soak up the stunning views and staying a few nights in lovely guesthouses with nice beds, hot showers and stupendous views of the mountains. The accommodation also offered "Happy Shakes" of which, me being me, I consumed quite a few. This possibly slowed down our progress a little! Quite funny really the Tibetans would ask if we wanted our shakes and pizzas, "Happy or No Happy". All this herb grew locally on the roadside, tons of the stuff, and the Chinese turn a blind eye as the Tibetans use the seeds for their tea! But none of them actually smoke it, just the foreigners! So its a very HAPPY VALLEY indeed. Oh yeah its also the steepest gorge in the world! The views are breathtaking, so its quite a place!

Anyway had a brilliant time. Thursday arrived back in Lijang, and yesterday have arrived at another hippy place in Dali City. So gonna have a chilled out last few days before I arrive back in London!

Had a bit of a pullava Thursday. Barclay's are basically a complete bunch of wankers. And one of their employees is a useless, lying, incompetent piece of scum. I won't go into details but I now have no cards in which to get money out so am stuck in China with no access to money. Thankfully a lovely girl called Kirsten took out a wad of cash for me and I transfered money to her via my internet bank.

Just seen some bloke on the street with huge bowls of fish about two feet long and then a bowl with these MASSIVE toads/frogs in, must have been over a foot long. Anyway had better go and ummm chill out.