China (Beijing, Yunnan and Sanya), Walking Around Ringha, Zhongdian, 16 April 2010

Usual routine morning before setting off on foot at 9 am to walk from the hotel through village around hills to town

We were joined by Palchen’s pal Yunden. We played some impromptu cricket along the way…

I reported on the cricket in some depth separately and on King Cricket:

…and took several snack breaks with biscuits, bananas and chocolate. Some of the walking was easy, summer is quite hard, About five hours in all.

Yunden was purportedly there to “learn the ropes”, but I got the impression that Palchen was worried that we “old folk” might not be good for high hill walking and wanted some back up bulk for just in case. I suspect that my tipping money was plenty of compensation for Yunden who seemed very happy with his day.

Searched in vain for combination locks in New Town & debated changes to the itinerary for tomorrow.

Back to lovely base by 15:00.

Sat out for a while before I got cold.

Massage by “Su Wu” [I think that must be one of Daisy’s pseudonyms], then hot tub etc.

Dined in à la cart restaurant, enjoying duck salad, yak burger with coleslaw and some chips, lamb shank Mongolian style.

Crashed early after looking at pictures.

There is a placeholder and links piece for this trip, with links to all the photographs, the full itinerary and stuff – click here for that.

Tibet v England Impromptu Cricket Match in Yunnan Province, April 2010

In the high hills of Yunnan Province, in South-West China, on the lower reaches of the Tibetan plateau, you don’t expect much in the way of cricket experience, least of all playing the game, but when you travel, stuff happens.

I reported this extraordinary event on the King Cricket website, where I write occasional pieces under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd.   Janie and I have called each other Ged and Daisy since the mid 1990s.

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Click here to read the report.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Tibet v England match report

Among my King Cricket pieces, this one comes second only to my impromptu live commentary experience in India, which can be found through this link.

But I digress.

If you would like to see photos from the few days we spent up in the high hills of Yunnan Province, including photos of this event, then click here.