White Around The World

While sitting eating hotpot, a local speciality in Chengdu, I started to think that it probably wasn't the best idea. Basically you have a pot of boiling spicy stuff on your table and they bring you raw meat and vegetable that you cook in it. Half way through the meal I thought that putting the raw meat into the hotpot with the same chopsticks that I was eating with probably wasn't the safest way of eating, but it was too late by then. The next morning I found that I had been right and it seemed to have been a very effective way of getting food poisoning. Although I wasn't feeling great, it wasn't too bad so just carried on with everything I had planned for the next few days. But after a couple of days walking in Emei Shan I still wasn't getting any better, so came down fom the hill a day earlier than I had planned and spent a couple of days in the village trying to recover before moving on. After a trip to the hot springs with a lot of time sat around in saunas and spas I was feeling Ok so decided to get the overnight train to Kunming. Alll I can say about that is that i found the compact design of the train bathrooms very useful as it meant that you could both go to the toilet and be sick in the basin at the same time (sorry about the detail there). So when I arrived in Kunming decided that a week of this was long enough and I needed to see a doctor. Following the advice from the hostal I went to the local hospital and the best I can say about the experiance is that it made me realise how could the health service at home really is. Outside the hospital you had to get various forms and stuff, and then eventually got directed in to the ward where I was suppossed to be. But there was no sign of any Drs or nurses, just a lot of patients and a cleaner. Sat around for a couple of hours waiting to find out what was going on, but more and more patients just kept turning up, so I was wondering how everything would be organised when the drs did arrive as there seemed to be no order or appointments. eventually a few Drs and nurses arrived and my question was answered, there basically was no system of organisation. It was just chaos as everyone was trying to push there way in to the consultation rooms to be seen. The idea of queueing for anything just doesn't exist in China. One of the nurses told me which dr I should try and see, so I joined the chaos. People were just pushing and fighting to get in the room, so that while one person was being seen there would be about 20 other people in the room trying to push there way to the drs desk so they would be seen next. eventualy the nurse stepped in and did try to organise some kind of queue and make people wiat outside but a lot of peole were still ignoring this. eventually i did get seen and although the dr could obviously speak some english she refused to try and said she would only listen if I spoke Chinese. So with the help of the phrase book I managed to explain what was wrong and thought we were getting somewhere then she just got up and walked out. A while later she came back with a nurse and I wa sent off with her. Followed her round the hospital for a bit, ended up in accident and emergency but when she went into the resuss room I refused to follow her any further. Eventually she came back and i tried to find out what was going on without much success. But 2 chinese hirls in the waiting room came and helped us translate a few things and then we all went back upstairs to the dr, who had obviously hoped she had got rid of me. The 2 random girls from the waiting room explained that the Dr wanted me to have some tests, so she sent me off again with the 2 girls. I think the dr was just trying to do anything to get rid of me, so by that point I had had enough and just walked out. I had some antibiotics from home that I had been taking so decided just to carry on treating myself.

Spent a couple of days in Kunming and was feeling a bit better so decided to move on to Lijang. Unfortunatly this meant a long bus journey of at least 8 hours, and after my last experiances on the train I wasn't looking forward to it. But actually it turned out to be a very nice journey. The bus was actually a luxury coach with aeroplane style seats and a hostess who brought round drinks etc. Apparently the bus journey was also very scenic but before getting on i took a combination of antibiotics, painkillers and travel sickness tablets that sent me to sleep for almost the entire journey. At one point there was apparently even a fight on the bus which lead to a lot of screaming and shouting of the people involved and the baby sat right behind me. The first i knew of it wa when the bus stopped and one of the womedn involved was taken away by the police.

Anyway I arrived in Lijang and since then I have been feeling fine.

Lijang turned out to be a really nice place, definitely worth the travelling to get there. It has both old town and new town areas, I was staying in the old town. In a way it is kind of like a chinese version of Venice, with narrow streets and a lot of rivers flowing through the town, and no cars. Was a nice place just to spend the day wandering around. so enjoyed a day there and evrything was going well again.