i'm on the southern silk road right now and it's pretty damn cold. i'm with this french canadian guy and we decided to take a sleeper bus for a 20 hour journey but little did we know how crappy the conditions would be. trying to protect ourselves from the cold with their blankets barely helped. the blankets smelled strongly like mutton so bringing that dirty soiled rag near our faces was the greater of two evils. everything on the southern silk road smells like a putrid combination of mutton and wet dog. we're cold, miserable and stuck in some god-forsaken town called qiemo as the next bus out doesn't leave until friday. i wish i were dead. other than that, things are going fantastic!