I’ll get to the havoc later; so let’s start with the hills and valleys.
We departed Lijiang in the rain to climb out of the town to the east towards our overnight stop in Panzhihua. We came over the top of the first range for the day to almost clear skies and looking down into the Yangtze valley again as it made it way to the ocean. The Yangtze was raging along 1200 metres below as we made our way down the provincial road to the river crossing below, with the drive interrupted buy a couple of stops for photo shoots. The town at the river crossing was almost a ghost town, most likely due to the mine on the hill above the town having not worked in a long while. I guess it lead to the death of the town – as mine closures do the world over.
The hill climbing and valley views were the norm for the rest of the day with amazing changes in agriculture from valley to valley. The road-side stalls in one valley would all be selling grape and stone fruit the next something completely different. We crossed one range to find the stalls all selling mangos, then all of a sudden we were in Mango Valley so to speak. Every farm in the valley was growing mangos unless it was flat enough for rice, with all the mangos on the trees each in a paper bag for protection as they ripened.
In this valley as Maurie and I pulled up for a lunch-break a young man came out of the house across the road and started talking to us in English. During our chat he was also telling us that he worked in Lijiang which is a five hour bus ride away every second week.
About 45 kilometres from town is were the havoc started. The road turned to a broken concrete track with road works in progress. As I was going down a hill meeting a bus the woman that had changed her mind from passing the bus, was in the process of pulling back in for me to get through; when for some reason only known to her, she stopped as I was about to squeeze through. Her stopping lead to me just touching her back corner, but the wheel nut on the front left wheel grabbed her rear guard and gently removed it from the back of her car. I didn’t know quite what to do and with no way of communicating, I continued on out of the place.
This was the start of the slight havoc.
About five kms further through the road works Garry was pulled up with some upset locals waving a shovel and a crowbar at him. As we drove past and continued on our merry way it suddenly occurred to me what it was most likely about what I had accidentally done – so I radioed Garry and let him know. Alim our guide turned up with Reg at about the same time, so I phoned him and let him know what had happened. In the process the police turned up as well. While all this was happening behind me, I was pulled up by a policeman as I entered Panzhihua. I quickly phone Alim to see what was happening and found that it had all been sorted; so after the police with me had confirmation of the resolution; I was free to go. I was told later in town the resolution was that I was to go back tomorrow to sort it out, or pay the woman 1000 yuan. To save the trouble and delays Ross paid the woman the money on the spot. All sorted. Needless to say when everyone arrived at the hotel a bit later in the day, it was my shout for the cold drinks.
All in all it was a eventful day in many ways. Hindsight tells me I did it all wrong; but what is done is done. Tomorrow is another day and with new adventures with different excitement!!!!
