As it turned out, Hsipaw was just across the river. This means that I spent about 4 hours before making the decision to start walking. I only found one guy who could speak English (none could speak Chinese) and he told me it would probably take an hour to walk to Hsipaw from where our bus was waiting. In reality it took about 15 - and (and for part of that I joined three women in hitching a ride with a tractor to take me to the guesthouse..