To Hsipaw, day one

It is stunning. So good to be walking again. Red hills with dark green tea bushes in every direction, sand tracks and wood houses. Stopping for lunch in a tiny local shop: noodle soup and masses of green tea. Motorbikes, horses and walking the only transport. And more tea plantations. . . (They're the bits that look like erosion in the background).

Our guide is brilliant. Engaged, great English, a trade secret route across the ridges, and moaning constantly about the steepness and / or the state of his stomach.