One of the real privileges of journeying through less travelled parts of the world is the extraordinary hospitality that one encounters. These are among my favourite memories: the Tibetan goat herder who invited me to stay in his 'Hobbit house' on a cold and icy Himalayan pass; the Bedouin nomad who killed and cooked a chicken for me in his portable home while I was walking across the Judean Desert; and the policemen who bought me breakfast in Iran.
On my current expedition - a 5,000-kilometre walk from Mongolia to Hong Kong - there has also been no shortage of incredible kindness. However, it's been pretty easy to find a ludian (cheap, Chinese roadside accommodation) in even the smallest towns, and I can camp in my bivvy bag, so I have not often had to rely on people to give me a place to sleep.
The other night, however, things were different. Leon McCarron, my partner, and I decided to split up for a couple of days, to take a break from each other and change our routine.
However, Leon had taken our smartphone, which gave us access to Google Maps, on which we had been becoming rather reliant for navigating. That forced me to use a good old-fashioned map (a couple of pages torn out of a road atlas).
I managed to get lost and, in the darkness, went past the town where I had been planning to stay. About an hour later, I realised my mistake and knew I would have to camp in a field. I was also running out of water, so when I saw two people doing laundry outside a large house, I went over to ask for some. A middle-aged lady took my bottle and went inside, and an old man offered me a small chair. A couple of other people came out of the house to see what was going on.
The lady came back with my water bottle filled and asked if I was hungry. The next thing I knew, I was fed a big bowl of rice and meat. It was dark, and I was so tired that the images in my mind are blurred, but I remember more people appearing. They told me it was a labourers' house with 40 people living in it.
As I ate, I decided to be bold and asked if I could sleep on their floor for the night, as I was too tired to walk to the next town and rain looked likely.
