The city of Muse was at the China-Burma border. Our last stop before we crossed over to China on the 14th. Or so we thought. Once again, I wasn’t feeling well at all. I spent most of the journey medicated and asleep.

So, funny story here. We were under the impression that we would be crossing into China on 14th morning. Our guides were under the impression that we’d cross over as soon as we reached Muse. They led us to the immigration building and like Mary’s little lambs we followed them without a question. One confusing hour later and here was our situation. Burmese officials needed us to leave Myanmar on the 13th. The time was around 6pm in Burma and 8pm in China. Our problem? The Chinese border closed three hours ago. Add torrential rainfall to the mix and we have utter chaos. Where would we spend the night? No man’s land?

Luckily for us, our Chinese guide Deji came to the rescue and negotiated with the Chinese officials to let us in. We cleared immigration and step foot into China but that was just the beginning of the long list of formalities that needed to be completed. There was the fact that we had two cars filled with luggage which needed to be registered with the Chinese traffic police. Additionally, all five drivers had to be given temporary Chinese licenses which was another process in itself. But that was a headache for the next day.

We checked into the first seedy motel with rooms available, thanking our lucky stars we even had a bed to sleep on. More on the hotel later but these guys take population control seriously. Similar to the way you’d expect to find an instant coffee mix, were contraceptives. Right there, next to the glasses for water. Safe to say that I didn’t feel like drinking water for a bit afterwards