Crazy Trekkers

Everyone in the little house woke up pretty early. Poor Morag was up all night blowing her nose. We both got no sleep and had the most achy body ever from sleeping on a wooden floor. When we were sleeping people came in and meditated as there was a Buddha statue above us. They were right at our feet which was slightly awkward. When I got up a women came through with soup which I thought was for us so said thank you but it was actually an offering to Buddha. Morag was very ill so I asked them if they had any medicine. They gave us some dodgy looking pills. She was sick outside and then took the medicine before having a long sleep. I chatted with the two men and they asked me lots about Scotland. They told me their seasons are rainy season, winter and summer. We are in the rainy season at the moment. Apparently in winter the temperature is still 28 degrees. I showed them lots of pictures from back home. They asked me if my hair and eyes were original which I found quite funny. Kohmo was cold and drank a whole glass of rum, whiskey and herbal tea mixed together. Yuck. He gave me a taste of the whiskey and it was super strong! I bumbled around the house whilst Morag slept and made it up to the loos without slipping. It was funny as Morag threw a cover of her and the man put it straight back on her. They said that it is good for her to sweat. I watched them cook lunch. The lovely old man always sits next to the cooking pot with his cigar constantly in his hand with his yellow turban on. He is such a sweet man. I woke up Morag so she could eat something. They made noodle soup for her and I had fried noodles and a strange garlic soup! Morag slept until 1 and then we walked back down as there was no form of transport anywhere. Not even motorbike. Super super muddy again. They gave us both a long bamboo stick to walk with. We said thanks and bye to the lovely old man with his turban on his head and with a cigar in his hand! Slippery, long, slightly sweaty/clammy, steep trip back down the mountain. We saw lots of tribal women and men on the way down carrying there supplies up to their villages from the Sunday market in their wicker baskets over their shoulders. We stopped at his 'friends' bamboo house in a little village on the way down. Their house was the small shop in the village, they had masses of small bags of things hung up. We had lots of different nuts, soya bean things and some other radom stuff. He gave me some rice wine that was super strong and not very nice. Headed down and they told us that they would get a horse and cart for Morag so she didn't have to walk anymore. But instead of that there was a dodgy truck with turf in the back that had been dug up the chugged past. So we hitched a lift with them...bumpiest ride I ever had. It was so funny just sitting on top of all the mud! Was slightly annoying as we got off so the two guides could buy their betel stuff. It is disgusting stuff and we were dreading it in the next 5 minutes when they make a revolting sound and spit it out! When we got back to smiling moon we chatted to the lady and asked for a little bit of the money back (not even half) and they weren't having it. Really annoying as we were asking really nicely and explained that we wouldn't been eating supper, sleeping, breakfast and lunch on the trek anymore. But the trek man suddenly turned horrible and his English became even worse!! He told us he couldn't do it. In the end they just walked away from us and we only got 10,000 Kyat back. Very annoyed whilst walking back to our hostel as they were so nice to us on the trek and then when it involves money they suddenly become horrible. For supper we went back to our lovely man (pancake place) and had pancakes and chicken broth soup three times over. We walked back in the dark and I counted how many stray dogs we saw...in total there were 16!! Quite scary.