F--k! I woke up last night at 3:30am and had to concurrently vomit and have diarhhea. It was the most disgusting experience of my life having roughly the same liquid coming out both ends. I felt sorry for the cleaner who had to clean up my mess which wasn't that bad as it was a squat toilet so you can just hose it down. I haven't sat on a western toilet for a month now.
Anyway, after some stemetil and imodium to stop anymore of this I felt well enough to push on to Xichang today which marks the halfway point of our Lijiang to Chengdu journey by bus. The bus was shittier than yesterdays and we moved onto rocky unsealed roads for half the trip so it took almost 8 hours to move 240km.
Xichang's bus and train stations were sold out of tickets to Chengdu so we've once again resigned to bus hopping tomorrow another 250km north to Hanyuan. We're really seeing the real China over these few days and I've become a big fan of Sichuan - there are minimal tourists in these areas and we're way off the Lonely Planet trail Xichang doesn't even rate a mention. There's no touts trying to sell me overpriced crap. The terrain has changed from snow capped mountainous peaks of North Western Yunnan to rolling hills characteristic of the eastern parts of Sichuan which makes the bus ride slightly better as the road doesn't wind so much.
The three white guys I'm with have turned into a total freak show for the locals - I think it's the first time they've ever seen white people, the stares get more intense, the shouts of 'hello waiguoren' louder and more frequent. There's no McDonalds or KFCs in this town even though the population is probably about 500,000. We've found a 15rmb per night per person hotel in the backstreets after hunting around for a few hours for lodging. We checked out this 7rmb per night place that looked worse than 'the block' in Redfern and smelt like there was a corpse rotting in one of the rooms and thought it would be a good idea to move on - it looked like somewhere where people inject heroin!
Other than that extremely dodgy hotel, I quite like it in Xichang, it's a small laid back town that's quite clean and has blue sky. I don't know why but I really think Sichuanese people are nicer than Yunnanese - they're warmer and more friendly, even Hugo agrees with me here. Even though I haven't spotted any rural beauties like Gong Li, Sichuan girls really are better looking on average compared to their Yunnan and Guangxi compatriots, less of the blokes look like thieves, cheats and liars as well.
The only problem I'm having is real trouble with the Sichuan chilly here because of my stomach bug - throwing up again after dinner and getting the chills - Wigan's ordered me to fast for the next 48 hours to clear the bugs out of my system.
Anyway, after some stemetil and imodium to stop anymore of this I felt well enough to push on to Xichang today which marks the halfway point of our Lijiang to Chengdu journey by bus. The bus was shittier than yesterdays and we moved onto rocky unsealed roads for half the trip so it took almost 8 hours to move 240km.
Xichang's bus and train stations were sold out of tickets to Chengdu so we've once again resigned to bus hopping tomorrow another 250km north to Hanyuan. We're really seeing the real China over these few days and I've become a big fan of Sichuan - there are minimal tourists in these areas and we're way off the Lonely Planet trail Xichang doesn't even rate a mention. There's no touts trying to sell me overpriced crap. The terrain has changed from snow capped mountainous peaks of North Western Yunnan to rolling hills characteristic of the eastern parts of Sichuan which makes the bus ride slightly better as the road doesn't wind so much.
The three white guys I'm with have turned into a total freak show for the locals - I think it's the first time they've ever seen white people, the stares get more intense, the shouts of 'hello waiguoren' louder and more frequent. There's no McDonalds or KFCs in this town even though the population is probably about 500,000. We've found a 15rmb per night per person hotel in the backstreets after hunting around for a few hours for lodging. We checked out this 7rmb per night place that looked worse than 'the block' in Redfern and smelt like there was a corpse rotting in one of the rooms and thought it would be a good idea to move on - it looked like somewhere where people inject heroin!
Other than that extremely dodgy hotel, I quite like it in Xichang, it's a small laid back town that's quite clean and has blue sky. I don't know why but I really think Sichuanese people are nicer than Yunnanese - they're warmer and more friendly, even Hugo agrees with me here. Even though I haven't spotted any rural beauties like Gong Li, Sichuan girls really are better looking on average compared to their Yunnan and Guangxi compatriots, less of the blokes look like thieves, cheats and liars as well.
The only problem I'm having is real trouble with the Sichuan chilly here because of my stomach bug - throwing up again after dinner and getting the chills - Wigan's ordered me to fast for the next 48 hours to clear the bugs out of my system.
Here's an interesting Chinese invention for Westerner's who can't squat...
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