We woke up to a misty morning and set off through a small village on an increasingly steep and winding road. One young local was being trained on the wheelbarrow.
The mist gradually turned to heavy rain and we made a stop for lunch outside a firework factory. The road was covered in mud and was very slippery. Two km up the road we saw a lorry hanging on the crash railings with only a few bits of grass and shrubs between it and a straight 800m drop to the valley below. They were very lucky indeed!
The road was high and we were glad of the barriers!
We saw a total of six accidents including another lorry which had hit a power line post, which had again saved it from a massive drop down the mountain. Finally we arrived at a bad crash and had to follow a local car down tiny roads to join the road after the blockage
The rain started to ease to drizzle and the views improved. People were emerging and carrying on with their harvesting.
The whole area was terraced here and in between the crops were more tombs.
We continued on and crossed a huge bridge over the Yangzi river. It was very hazy and difficult to see over the high guard rails on the bridge. We didn’t stop.
Finally we got to the freeway and it felt good to be able to relax a little. Nowhere near as much fun, but it is tiring and much more dangerous on the small roads. Mainly because of the better off car drivers, who often have fast cars but little experience.
First stop on the freeway was a lady selling walnuts. Funny the ones she showed us opened easily, the ones we bought were hard as granite.
One thing that is surprising in China is that the police seem intimidated by wealth or status and road rules seem optional for some. Expensive cars drive with either no number plates or they are covered with camouflage cloth. They may have more money but they treat other motorists as though they should move aside for them, often using hazard warning lights to say “hey I’m important, you are peasants, …. move aside”! The slightly more modest cars are more discreet about their attempts to fool the speed cameras.
Don’t get me wrong, the normal Chinese people are really friendly, generous and smiley, but the so called ‘new rich’ can be pushy and arrogant to the extreme! They seem to have forgotten where they came from.
We stopped for the night about 100km from Chongqing in a town. We parked outside Springs guest house and had the noisiest night of our trip so far…… no sleep. Graham was grumpy in the morning …. and Marjool worse!
troopytracks 