"Guide" means having done a three-year tourist guide certificate course at a third-tier university, while all the time never learning basic life skills. I taught some of them English for a couple of years. "Guide" means NEVER asking for directions or help because that means losing face in front of the whole world. Guides never admit to anything negative. "Guides" never wear spectacles because they can't afford them so they can't see what you are pointing at across the valley.
We did a couple of long trips by train taking along a student as a guide and that was more than bad enough and we soon learned that it was a lot less hassles to figure it all out for ourselves. Trouble is they have got you by the short and curlies - same as Burma and possibly Thailand and Laos. Their country, their rules.
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