Max

We departed Dawu for a 170 k run to Ganzi in the drizzling rain which had started just on bedtime last night.  Getting going in the morning with the rain in a semi open car it’s always a mission till you are settled inside and warmed up.  About 10 k out of town we came across a small traffic jam waiting for a land slide to get cleared. The road was opened in about 5 mins with the next problem being, sorting out the 2 lines of traffic facing each other, but as always the Chinese get it unscrambled on there own with backing and filling till everyone is going again.

The rest of the day was mostly following the river that had risen a lot overnight and turned Brown. As we pasted the one major town we drove down the main street for a look about and once again created a traffic jam as the local jostled for photos. Out of town about 6 k we pulled up on the side of the road for a morning cuppa in a quite spot. Wrong I don’t think its possible to find a quite spot when you drive a 90 year old car in China, because nearly every car that drove by stopped for photos and they would just pull up on the road and get out of their car and expect people to go around. Later in the morning we drove past a yak that had been hit by a car and the locals where in the process of butchering it on the road with the police directing traffic. We stopped for a photo shoot but got chased away by the police for some reason before I got any good photos.

Since we arrived in town early Penny received some special attention before I headed off around town for a walk.

The blog will have a lot more photos today then will be included with the email you receive so if you want to see some interesting photo from around town you may need to click through to the blog.

Have just found out we need to down the road past some road works by 8.00am so Maurie and I are pulling out at 2.30am as parts of the road are very bad . So early to bed after I push Publish

I have started this post sitting on the side of the road with 100 ks left to go which is at least 3 hours drive in this traffic on these roads. We have been in the traffic jam for 2 hours so far due to a traffic accident somewhere ahead of us. Parked here is  is still better then the people with the problems of the motor accident. The people around us have been very interesting as we have been talking to a young girl and another man who both spoke very good English.  The traffic gets very clogged around blockages as the Chinese are very impatient when it comes to traffic and you end up with both lanes full of traffic and no one can move.
We have just moved along the road 17 ks to be at another jam. we can at least see the problem about a k ahead of us at a hair pin. So we’re close.
This morning we started the day with a visit to a Panda Sanctuary which was quite interesting. The best part was the visit to the Kindergarten where the babies are raised including one about 8 inch long living in a humidicrib.

I’m continuing this in the hotel at KangDing at 7.00pm were only 2 cars have arrived so far. When we got past the crash site we thought is was open for good, but the road was re closed just after Reg and I got through. On our arrival at the hotel we found out from Alim who travels with Reg that the other car are still stopped the other side of the accident at 7.00pm with at least 2.5 hours drive too get to the hotel with us. 
The drive today has been nothing short of spectacular again and probably more so then previous days in China as the valleys have got deeper and steeper with today’s drive all through forested mountains. I’m glad we are here at the end of the wet season as all the rivers are raging down the gorges with waterfalls coming off and out of the mountains. Not a lot of photos as it’s been a busy day driving.
It’s now 8.00pm and have just received word that the other 3 cars are travelling again and will arrive at about 10.30pm.  
Today also saw our arrival in what is known as the Tibetan region with tomorrow nights accommodation at 3600 metres.  

Today started with a border crossing which wasn’t as smooth as hoped. Somehow when we picked up the car from the port we were given the customs paperwork but not the “Importance of Conveyance” form from the police. After a lot of decision they decided to give us one as we where leaving and sign it off straight away so we could exit Thailand. I think it help that our car was a great photo subject for all the officers to get photographed with.

About 120k after leaving the border we were coming down a hill in 2nd gear and I couldn’t change out of 2nd. OMG! what has gone wrong was my first reaction! We drove along in 2nd till we found space to pull over and investigate. Upon lifting the floor to get at the gearbox we discovered the lid latch had come apart and fallen into the gearbox(Vauxhall owners will understand). Luckily this latch had not got caught up in the gear train and the only damage was a bit of wear on the thread. With a great deal of help from the Vauxhall Gods no serious damage was done and the parts from the outside of the gearbox we couldn’t do without were found laying of the top of the box at the back. So all in all a very lucky escape from a potential trip ender. Maurie and I proceeded to clean the thread up with a file and get the whole contraption back to gather again. After this was completed it was time to have  cuppa in the shelter that was beside the road that served as some were dry to put our luggage while getting parts from the bottom of the car.

As we were loading the car a group of young Loas kids pulled up to have a look and ask us where we were going. Lee spoke very good english that had been learnt at school.

The day finished up with us arriving in Luang Namtha for 2 night till the others join us and we all cross into China on friday. We will spend the day getting washing done and giving Penny some tender loving care with the grease gun and oil can.

This afternoon we received news that the other 4 cars are unloaded and are now on the way north to catch up with us tomorrow night in Luang Namtha in Laos.

Today has been a short drive to spend the night beside the Mekong River that forms the Thai-Laos border in this area. As it’s the wet season the river is running full, fast and a Red Brown colour with thousands on tonnes of slit from all the farms and hills in the area upstream.

We left Chiang Rai latish as we only had 160ks driving after doing some bloging and a bit of tinkering on Penny. Our first stop was a local market to check the shopping habits of the Thai people. the market had everything in local fruit and meat including plenty of live fish. In the last couple of days we have seen a lot of signs to caves so today we visited a cave site to only go about 10 metres inside. Caves are used as houses by the local monkey family so we left and moved on to Mae Sai for lunch on the Mekong river upstream from our crossing point Tomorrow.

While lunching in Mae Sai it started to rain, the funniest site around is people riding their scooters with umbrellas up. We moseyed on from lunch to stop and watch some men harvesting rice plants for transfer to another paddy, before the last stop for the day at the Opium Museum which displayed the story of Opium from 5000 years ago up to now.