Now I am not one who usually complains, honest. But I occasionally find myself and my travel companions subjected to certain treatments that I feel deserve to be complained about, and I am not afraid to approach them and make others aware. For a lot of my travel life I have refused to take guided tours, the wealth obtained from ahieving such ventures on your own generally far exceed those where you are constricted to anothers schedule. I do think of the benefits to my bank balance but my main concern is to escape the stunted confinement of my ability to experience. Sometimes however a guide is crucial, or actually makes a location worthwhile, I have no qualms about this and have written of some grest experiences previously in this trip.

Why I bring all this up now is because on our last night upon the hillside we were invited to join the group for one last supper, they had a place for us to stay where we could buy beer.

Upon arrival at a guesthouse the joy of our achievement felt somewhat dimmed, here we were taken into a compound that contained a chained monkey and a dirty feel to the courtyard and building. Dumping our luggage was a huge relief but having to shift some dirty cusions out of the way made me feel a lot less dirty from the mud and sweat which coated the insides of my trousers. I just didn't feel comfortable, and then tried to use the drop toilet which had me retching before I'd reached the entrance.

This was a case of a woman exploiting individuals after a hard few days hiking. Having been taken to an undisclosed location not quite close enough to the town to allow you an alternative, the buses having already stopped for the day (or so we were told).

Kindly we were also offered wine, which we took from shot glasses. Our stomachs enjoyed the warmth although you had to try pretty hard to keep the flies away, the sight of them smothering the fruit made me gag slightly never mind the ones on the shoes. Neither of us felt warmed to the hostel that celebrated the end of our heavy journey, however I will confess the reasonably priced beds rooms had crisp clean and comfy sheets, (a few flies seemed to follow). Soon after settling in, the boys interrupted us to join them for our last supper as promised the night before, several simple dishes were on offer alongside a sacrificed chicken which was obviously not going to be enjoyed by the vegetarians amongst us. After the more than basic quisine we had survived on throughout the hike and the insistance of the invitation to dinner and can you imagine our suprise when we are asked to foot the bill for the whole group, including the wine which was pressed upon us in a shot glass.

Prue and I usually spend no more than 20-40 yuan on a very decent chinese meal, unfortunately we were not prepared for a 280 yuan bill which exceeded the cash we had upon us, as we were waiting to change dollars in Deqen. If Owain had not been able to translate or lend us money for the bus we would have been in a tough situation, besides, we were pretty angry. During the night, tummies askew (there were flies invited to dinner of course) we refused to use the horrific toilets and did something that I am almost morbidly proud of. We squatted on the roadside and left a dump right there in the fresh air, I had to call Prue back and made the whole situation even more horrific because it seemed right to show her that my body had acted accordingly and became undistinguishable from a mules, we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Trust your instincts when travelling, when we saw our proximity to the bus stop the next day we wish we had followed ours.