Greetings........ As usual we havent checked out on the day we planned to and have now just booked a 3 day hike through the mountains... but I'll tell you all about that later. First I'll just catch you up on todays events. After a pretty heavy drinking session last night we woke up kinda late and stumbled downstairs for some authentic Sichuan cuisine.... well we tried but the bacon and egg sandwiches on page 3 of the menu were just too good to resist!! (twice in the case of Dave and Steve).

An hour or so of milling around later we decided to head out to a local clothes market so that I (jules) and Lyndsey(one of the girls who we met in Xi'an and ended up doin some travellin with) could buy some suitable footwear for our hike. We eventually found a stall selling some walking trainers and after what seemed like an eternity of mis-communications between us and the local stall lady, left a couple of pairs of footwear better off. On the way back to the bus we stopped fopr a snack.... I had a deep fried rice cake (i think) and dave had some meat ....."If I saw them with a bag of rats beside the stall I wouldnt be surprised"... was his exact description of the kebab.

Back at the hostel we decided to go and get some details of the hike from Sim.... the Singaporian(??) owner of the hostel and he described the hike in the following way.

Quote 1 : "The monkeys are not skinny like me but they are massive!!"

Quote 2 : "WHEN you encounter the monkeys stay in a group and keep walking because there is an accident every year!"

Quote 3 : "Do not feed the monkeys because they come in packs of 50!!!!!!!!!"

Quote 4 : " Carry a big stick to fend them off!"

By now you get the picture... we're off on an extreme treck through mountains and the scenery is supposed to be breath taking so keep a look out for the pictures. We will be staying in monasteries along the way and so will be without internet.... and electricity... and westernised toilets!!

The hike will take us 3 days and half way up the mountain it will be a snow trek so we are gonna hire cramp ons from the locals.

Thats all to report for today and we'll get back to you in a few days. (assuming the monkeys havent got the better of us)