12TH - 14TH JULY

We had a 6 hour bumpy bus ride from Dali, which was OK but you sure don’t get much room on Chinese buses, even I found it a bit cramped so poor old Rob had a very squashed ride as did the rest of the tall people on our trip. They probably had moor chance of getting deep vain thrombosis from that bus ride than any flight they may ever take! But no complaints really, we all got there safe and sound which is a blessing due to the fact that all Chinese drivers are complete maniacs when they get behind the wheel of anything be it a bike, car, tractor or whatever, they just drive it as fast as possible, beep the horn as often as they can and the overtaking … I have never seen anything like it, they are millimetres away from whatever they’re overtaking regardless of what it is, be it a person, police car, bike it doesn’t matter to them the fast and shortest route possible is the only thing on their minds I’m sure!

We got dropped off in a small village again in the pouring rain, so we stocked up on high energy snacks as everyone wasn’t sure exactly how strenuous this trek would be, Greg had assured us it would be fine, but he had spent the last month mountain climbing in Tibet and is fit as a fiddle and can leave all of us for dead when it comes to walking fast! Also there is some discrepancy as to how long the trek actually is, some say its 33 km and some say 45 km, apparently before China became very westernised there kilometres were slightly shorter than westerner ones, hence where the confusion comes in so the story goes that its 45 old Chinese km and 33 western km, but nobody has ever really measured it properly so I guess nobody is entirely sure, which ever it is it’s a bloody long wall with lots of big hills and the dreaded 28 bends! You do 2 hours hiking on the first day, 8-9 on the second and 4-5 on the third day so it doesn’t really matter exactly how long it is cause the result will be the same