Same thing, man, Jinghong, we’re staying in you know one of those kind of a nice old hotel

aha

but every night, dormitories, I think there’s like six people in a room,

Yeah, yeah, I think I stayed there yeah

you’re always hearing the rats running around. Now it didn’t bother me you know I mean rats typically don’t bother me that much

mm hm

you know I would never close the mosquito net

mm hm

’cos I was always afraid you know you get a rat inside the bed

mm

with the mosquito net closed, if he gets scared you know he’s gonna run around and end up biting you

yeah, yeah

you know but anyway you know but every night you go to bed and you hear the rats

mm

but it never really it just didn’t bother me that much

mm

but you know one day there was me, I was travelling with this Swedish guy,

mm hm

big huge guy

yeah

about 6’5"

yeah

you know 250 lbs, I mean a huge guy and we’d gotten some bicycles – do you remember outside Jinghong there was a rain forest?

yeah

You know so it was about a three- hour bicycle ride

mm hm

so we pedalled out there, just you know beautiful out in the country

mm hm

and we get to this village and there’s no hotel or anything

mm hm

but we’d been given a name – you know, this guy you know, this guy

mm hm

so we found this house in the village and it’s one of those, you know one of the country houses that are built up on stilts

oh yeah

so everything’s overground, you know over the ground and underneath the house you’ve got the pigs and the chickens

yeah

and all that

and the rats

well we’ll get to that

yeah

So there was no electricity here and we’d eaten you know we’d eaten dinner

mm hm

you know sitting up in the house and I’d gone to bed, you know, me and the Swedish guy

mm hm

we’d gone to bed and in hindsight I was sleeping next to one of the poles

mm

you know you can look down there’s a hole between every pole and you know you can see the pigs

mm

and the cows and everything down there, so we’d gone to bed and same thing I had some biscuits or something I’d left next to the bed you know but it was pitch black

mm hm

I mean you couldn’t see anything, I mean this far away you couldn’t see anything – no electricity, no lights you know

yeah

so it was just dark, so we’d gone to bed and I think it was about an hour or two later

mm hm

you know when you start to wake up

mm hm

but you’re not really awake

yeah

you know, you’re just not really awake – and I was lying there on my stomach and I could feel on my back, I could feel the hands of the rat

the paws

you know doing this and I’m not really awake, right, so you just panic so all of sudden you know I panic and I just jump up and I’m just going "Sh…!" I can’t say it you know "Oh God!" and I’m screaming and I’m trying to get you know the rat off my back, right

yeah

the Swedish guy’s right next to me

mm hm

he hears me yelling, he jumps straight up, right into my head, you know, and I’m screaming into his ear, he’s screaming into my ear, just panic, and this goes on, like "Aah! Aah!" you know and we’re both screaming and the more I scream he’s scared

yeah

and the more he screams I’m scared. Finally the lady walks in with the light and everything’s just quiet and I just said "Laoshu?" you know like "A rat" and all the villagers had come running out of their houses up to this house to see what all this noise is about and she just says something out the door you know like you know "Waiguoren pa laoshu!" And everybody was laughing you know and we get up the next morning, there was no way I wanted to go outside of that house you know

yeah

’cos there’s all these villagers waiting for this little, this foreigner that’s so afraid of rats you know. But I think everyone who’s been to Xishuangbanna has a story something like that

Well those are big rats, yeah. I mean they’re really huge rats. Rats as big as cats.