Jed took hold of the dried lizards, I took the bong and together we ran to the train. A three foot bong is difficult enough to handle without having both hands occupied with plastic bags of food and drink, and a rucksack on your back. I pinched it under my arm and stepped out from the tourist waiting room into a calm night heat. The sounds of Beijing eluded us on the platform.
We'd gone to Dali, to a market on the lake, but Ben had fallen ill with dysentery so we hadn't been able to stay long. In fact it had gotten so bad that we had to get him to Xichang to find help. I too, had run up a fever after we'd been caught on the hills in the rain with only our T-shirts... It was only Darius who was OK.
It would be a long bus journey from Lijiang to get there and it was not clear where I would stay once I was there. The guide books did not show anything. And it was not certain why it was off limits. Perhaps it was a route, albeit circuitous to Tibet. Perhaps it was because the society who lived there was matriarchal.
