Okay so here we are in.....hmmmm Shuhe?!?! (pronounced shoe-hey), and erm, not Lijiang!

So we get up this morning, go for a casual breakfast in Dali and head back for our minibus to Lijiang, yup, all cool so far. We jump on and there are, just about, two seats left. I opt for the one at the front next to the three huge red sacks each weighing about 20 kilos and each packed to the seams with raw, bleeding meat.....MINGING! There was blood on the floor and every time I moved my left foot it stroked some of the protruding cow flesh, eugh! It stank and managed to change colour throughout our five hour bus ride, cooking? Adds was on the back seat in between a group of about eight boys, it seemed remarkably quiet given the size of the group and the fact that they were all about twenty years old. It was only when I turned around to be told that they wanted to buy our iPod that I realised they were communicating with sign language and were all deaf. Funnily enough we managed to have more conversation with them than anyone else up to yet in China. When we separated after the journey ended, one boy managed to tell Adds in sign, "you have to buy me one of those", pointing to the iPod.....not even joking, he even gave us his contact details for when the deal takes place ha ha ha!

We had no idea which way to go so we managed to join on to a group of Chinese tourists from Beijing who were going to a hostel. We caught a bus which took about twenty minutes to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, they then piled us into a minibus where we were charged not only for us but human prices for our backpacks.....I know they're big but come on!!!! Anyway, another ten minutes later we arrive at our destination and find a guesthouse. We check in to our teeny tiny dorm room and prepare to go wandering. We take our map to reception and ask them to point out the hostel on the map....she looks confused, then laughs...."Aaah no, this map Lijiang", "errrrr yes, isn't that where we are?", we replied. "no no you in Shuhe".....blank faces all round. Ok so, we came to the wrong town ha ha we couldn't stop laughing.

We wandered round the town which was similar to Dali but seemed very purpose built, like Walt Disney had said, "let's recreate a mini Chinese village"! All the same we had a fantastic local dinner and wandered around, it's pretty cute to be fair, shame we don't have mattresses on the beds though grrrrrrr! Plywood it is!

So, tomorrow we're up early and are going to figure out where Lijiang is and how we get there! Wish us luck

:)

Lots of love, the temporarily lost travellers.

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