Lijiang the last major tourist town to dechin and the Tibetan border takes us through some great mountain scenery glaciers etc. and past some police checkpoints!

Leaving Lijiang first a climb out of town for a few km., being the lazy bastards that we are we took the help of a passing tractor unit that climbs at a similar speed and hung on to the back. Down the otherside in sight if a snow mountain we followed a lakeshore then climbed (unaided) throuh sunflowers a pines before a 25km decent on good roads down to the yangzigorge below. Reaching speeds of 75km through pineforests with snowy peaks all around and the brown yangzi roaring below it rates as a pretty cool drop. Being a tourist centre there is a great restaurant at the bottom too!

Down along the yangzi river valley to Tiger leaping gorge where the valley narrows. Along this road side I noticed a familiar looking plant, jumping down to investigate I landed in a huge pile of cows shit. You have to take shit to get good shit these days! A night At the gorge then a climb for 30 km along a small river took us to our first night camping, the next day to Zhongdian climbing up a series of small ridges to long plateaus with Tibetan houses, monks, people and their Yaks.

Zhongdian is a lively little place although it’s not much to look at, chinese concrete blocks. From here to Deching the road surface deteriorates to  a smooth stoney track. First a climb then a decent ,then a climb then a long decent back down to the river gorge. The sides too steep for trees only pockets of green like oasis mark the towns, and that plant clinging to the sides of the valley makes for a nice smell. A stop in a village to take pictures of a garden full of marajuana with huge buds, an old lady sitting on her doorstep looked at me bemused. As an excuse I told her your house is beautiful I want to take a picture. She retorted "What is up with you?" I laughed to Britta about how old people don’t really live in our world, she pointed out that the old ladies house had virtually been destroyed by a landslide and it was me that was in another world!

From Benzilan where we spent the night starts the first of the long climbs over 50km up to a 4500m pass. Two days were hard uphill with the highlight of a stop at a monastry. Tibetan monestries are really way out there man. Monks crowded in the main hall chanting mantras wearing burgundy robes and yellow moheakan hats with drums and horns adding to the audio and the stench of yak cheesegiving your nostrils a blast!

Arriving in Deching we found a hotel a rested. Out a night we heard the more familiar beats of a drum machine and naff dance music coming from one of the buildings across the road. Going to investigate we found the local disco. Getting up to dance we attracted a circle around us and it was lucky we were so drunk so we could perform for the crowd. It was hard to buy a drink as the local Tibetans were always first with their wallets. At the end of the night the slow dances came on and I asked a girl to dance she held me at arms length during the dance and after the song was over made for the door at speed!