Before leaving Guilin we toyed part seriously with the idea of staying and working in the hotel there for a time. We have a lot to offer, we thought, what with Wilken’s hospitality experience and my unmatched bed-making skills.

But we didn’t, on account of him not wanting his folks to be jailed for killing him for putting off his studies, and because I decided to pass on a year of stowing used loo paper in the bin to preserve the precious sewerage system.

Besides, Europe awaited. China to Germany via Gatwick and Luton.

Wait a minute. Gatwick AND Luton?

Yes, we are indeed such tightasses that we took the cheapest flight there was – one of those where you have to swipe a credit card for the luxury of a life jacket and pay by the hour in the event of using a lifeboat – with little thought as to subtleties such as airport location and what it takes to travel from one to the next.

A 12-hour flight took us to the motherland, where £20 and a 3-hour bus ride later we realised that London Luton was not really in the vicinity of anywhere, even Luton, and probably should be renamed Far Side of England Luton.

We passed the journey by idly people watching, and at one point Wilken remarked casually that he could see where my roots came from. Yes, my scalp, I said. Boo-boom. But what he meant was that apparently I and everyone else of pure British blood have spindly legs and prominent foreheads.