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Well, where do we start with Lijiang, we had a few adventures to say the least!! We arrived on a gorgeous day after another scenic bus ride from Shangri La. We had fab views down Tiger Leaping Gorge on route and were gutted that we couldn't do the 3 day trek - never mind, next time!!! Lijiang is a world heritage site and famous for its traditional Naxi buildings. Lijiang is split into the old and new town which are separated by Lion Hill. It's a really popular place for the Chinese to go on holiday and was absolutely packed with Chinese tourists but we still really liked it there. On the second day we decided that we would only eat street food as we had been so slack in eating the local food and munched our way through baba - a round flat fried bread that comes in sweet and savoury, octopus pills - a fried dough ball with squid and stuff inside, Lijiang sandwich - pitta stuffed with greasy noodles and onion and walnut cakes - little sponges with date paste and a walnut inside. That afternoon we booked a trip to go to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain the following day, it was pricey, £82 but included a return chair lift up to the glacier. That evening we went to a Mexican run pub called Frosty Morning and ended up on a bit of a session that started with Dali beer and ended with KGB cocktails!! We decided at midnight we should head home but got distracted on the way by a nightclub/bar that was full of Chinese people. After our first beer we met a group of tourists from Shanghai and didn't leave til 3.30am. It was a great night and we exchange emails and promised to visit them when we go back to China in September. Not a good idea to go drinking the night before a day trip and yes, we overslept!!!!!! Jay decided to go to Tourist Information and tell them I was ill and see if we could go the following day, on his way out of the guest house, he went to stroke the owners dog and he bit him on his finger right to the bone!!!! We had a laugh about it, cleaned it up and that was that. That afternoon we went to Black Dragon Pool which was really beautiful and had a lovely afternoon in the sun. That night about midnight Jay felt sick and ended up throwing up the KFC we had for dinner. Through the night he felt worse and had a really high temperature so, in view of the fact he'd been bitten by the dog, we went to the hospital first thing in the morning and what an experience that turned out to be!!! We arrived, no one spoke English and we had no idea what to do, eventually I sussed out that people were queuing up and paying money so I joined the queue, paid 4 yuan (40p) and was given a ticket. Eventually after looking lost and Jay being close to passing out, someone showed us to a room with a couple of nurses inside and about 10 locals. They took one look at Jay and pointed for us to go to another building. We walked inside and were shown into a room with two doctors inside and 10 more locals and we waited our turn. Jay was burning up and the nurse stuck a thermometer under his armpit and through sign language we managed to let them know that he had been bitten, he had a temperature, he was sick in the night and he didn't have a sore throat!! His temperature was nearly 38 degrees. I had to queue up again and pay for lab tests, go to another building and Jay had his blood taken, 20 minutes later we had the results of a full blood test - what a service!!! Back to the doctor again, he through sign language said that Jay was to have two injections. Back to the queue in the other building to pay for the prescription, into another queue to collect the medication and then back over to the other building. All the while Jay was fighting not to pass out!!! He had an injection in his wrist and was told to sit outside for 20 minutes, we presume this was some kind of allergy test and then he had an injection in his arm and one in his bum. We knew that one was tetnus because it said on the box but had no idea what the other one was. Back to see the doctor again who had a nurse with him who spoke a little English, the doc was concerned about Jay's temperature and sent us back to the other building to see another doctor we think for a second opinion. We then had to go back to the original doc who said we could go home but Jay needed 4 more injections and wrote down the dates. We went back to the guesthouse and I managed to get half our money back for the Jade Dragon Mountain trip. Jay spent the whole day in bed asleep. It dawned on me later in the day that the doctor stressed that Jay needed the further injections but his medical report was written in Chinese so we had no idea what medication he needed. As luck would have it, an American guy staying at our guesthouse spoke Mandarin and googled the medication and it was for rabies. The owner of the guesthouse wrote a letter to take back to the hospital, in chinese asking for the make of the vaccination and dosage and later that night we went back and she gave us the box and information sheet. All in all it was hard work sorting everything else but we couldn't fault the service at the hospital and although there was a huge problem with the language barrier, everyone helped as much as they could, oh and our total bill came to £9!!!!. We were surprised to see the doctors smoking whilst in consulation with patients, but that's China!!!! The guesthouse owner was really mortified and cooked us a meal and breakfast and wouldn't let us pay, bless her - Jay shouldn't have touched the dog in the first place and we tried to explain that it was no problem whatsoever!! The following day Jay was back on par and we travelled by bus back to Kunming and flew to Bangkok and then onto Koh Samui the following day. We have now been in Koh Samui staying at a top resort with my brother Pete and Mandy. The hotel is fantastic and it's going to be hard work getting back into backpacker mode after being in 5* luxury!!!! Oh, all four of us are off to the dentist this afternoon :-(
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