New Year

Well, the lunar new year has begun. After doing a round of visits on Tuesday evening we got back to the guesthouse and they sat down in front of the tv!!! NOOoooo. I went up to my room and listened to some music. I hate Chinese tv. I was tired and went to bed early, only to be woken at midnight by the sound of firecrackers. Everyone was partying except for me.

The next morning I woke to a severe case of diarrhoea. I wondered if it was the eleven dishes placed before us at dinner last night- 10 of which were meat. Two consisted purely of pork fat; one of chicken feet; one of fish; one of chicken and the rest were pork. ugggh. And a lone bowl of peanuts. No veg at all! And I think it had been sitting there for ages. Everyone else had finished eating already so it was two of us at the table. I ate sparingly but couldn't politely refuse everything.

Talked to my mum (who works in nursing) why I might have had stomach upsets for the better part of a month. She talked to a few people and came back with the answer that I probably have giardia, a water born infection requiring antibiotics. Didn't bring antibiotics, so went to the Doctor / Chemist in Yongning this morning. He produced about a dozen boxes of different antibiotics of different brand names, quantities and strengths and asked me which I wanted. This was followed by a half hour of phone consultation with mum and a doctor she managed to get on the line. They agreed that I needed an antibiotic with a specific ingredient which I　was unable to translate into Chinese and did not appear in English on any of the packets. Ended up buying the pack the doctor / chemist guy recommended. The pack only cost 10 yuan, though the phone calls probably ended up at well over 100! Grin and bear it.

Hope I get better cos tomorrow I am taking off on my grand tour of the lake. I plan to spend about a month, several days per village, doing these interviews. I think Xiao Luoshui will be my first stop, I take a boat from here across to Xiao Luoshui (I could walk, it's only an hour, but where's the fun in that- plus have backpack and sick excuse). Don't know if I will spend the night there or not. We'll see. Well, better take my bloated stomach back to the guesthouse for tea. At least the family here seems willing to serve me rice, noodles, mantou and veg. (No pork yeah)