One of the buildings in the monastery on the hill.
I didn't really get to sleep much; felt a trifle weird. The bed was made up of "bedding" and a full-length yak coat for a sleeping bag. I kind of wasn't sleeping in it properly but I was warm enough. I had to use my jumper as a pillow and I kept my own coat on as I slept. My watch was showing that in the middle of the night, the temperature on the ground was 8-9°C. Oh, and one of my walking boots was full of water! (But for some reason, not the other one ...)
I was actually one of the first to rise. I was sharing a tent with Jane and the two Odettes; they got up early themselves (though Dee didn't wake up feeling too well). For maybe half an hour I was the only one of the lads to have emerged! Surprisingly, when the guys did get up, they were feeling pretty well. We began to think that Andy had some kind of bizarre body condition that meant he could drink whatever he liked and by morning his body had managed to find a way to get rid of it all, because he was always surprisingly perky in the mornings no matter what he'd done the night before! The only guy who was having problems was Daniel, but then he'd been feeling pretty bad for the last couple of days anyway. It was almost certainly some kind of exhaustion - he'd been travelling round SE Asia for the whole of the last two months.
Anyhow, after breakfast, we walked back the way we'd initially come the day before, a short way at least, until we arrived at a monastery. Not all of us made it this far; Odette, Mona, Daniel, and James went back by minivan/taxi to Songpan as they weren't feeling too great.
We had a look around. It was in a fairly bleak location, but even so there were still some locals wandering around the prayer wheels etc. It all seemed fittingly quiet and remote.
We had walked to the monastery so the guides could pack up the camping equipment and load the horses. However they met up with us there and we rode back down the hill. It was a loooong horse ride back to the first village we'd stopped at on the way yesterday, it seemed to take forever and I was getting kind of restless, annoyed and a trifle uncomfortable; this was caused in part because my horse had decided that yes, he did have a fifth gear, and having found it wanted to use it for no reason every now and again!!
I made up my mind to *walk* up the big hill instead of riding it; this took a lot of effort but I was a bit quicker than most of the horses, but by the time I reached the top I was pretty exhausted!! On the way up, Mirella overtook me and her horse nearly pushed me down the hill!! I was walking along side it and it sort of pulled out in front of me, leaving me no room so I ended up slipping off the path!! My horse liked her horse so maybe it had a good memory for faces ... ?!?
After a bit of a pause to rest and relax, we walked down the hill towards Songpan; again the guides considered the route too dangerous for us to ride, and with good reason too - it was pretty steep and hard enough to walk down as it was! Once at the bottom we started to ride again; there were a couple of minor inclines and declines, including one short steep downhill section that was a little tricky. Then it was simply through the town, although my horse decided to speed up again near the very end and I got a little bit travelsick!!
In all, it was fun to ride, but I was glad to get off. My body ached for a little while every time I got off the horse!
Anyway. I went back into the hotel room (it was the same room as the day before, incidentally!!), and flaked out for a while. I got a couple of text messages on my mobile phone (from my penpals Michelle and Emma), but for some reason couldn't send replies to them. I decided to seek out the local Internet café and send them e-mails instead!
Didn't do a lot for the rest of the day; had a wander around Songpan town centre and the backstreets, then flaked out in one of the local cafés - the "Pancake House" - and had a bit of food, but went to bed quite early. Another long day forthcoming!
On a side note, in the café, we met up with the two Irish backpackers we'd come to Songpan with. It turns out that they're from the same small town as my penpal Val! They didn't know her personally, but they knew of her. What a small world!