-- From Guiyang to Lijiang

The day of the 11/09 was a waiting day of a phone call of the foreign traveller office in Guiyang informing us that our passports with the visa extension were ready. But at 17:30 no call reached us.

The 12/09 at 14:30 we went to seek our passports. At 15:00 we accepted them with a new valid visa from the 12/09/2006 to the 10/10/2006 thus we could leave China after the festivities of the national festival which last eight days from the 01/10/2006.  The remainder of the day the teams were occupied with various occupations.

The 13/09 at 07:00 in the morning, we took the road to ChongQing with four day delay on the road plan. I was to take, at the ChongQing Firefighting Workshop, the belts of replacement that the German engineers of MAN Beijing had very pleasantly sent me. The European map and the Chinese atlas mention a highway from Giuyang to ChongQing. Alas, the 134 kilometres from Giuyang to Zunyi were a four hours slalom of a smashed track, a trunk road curving in the villages and of a highway with single lane. Then it was a highway with a roadway passably degraded until ChongQing. Despite everything I arrived towards 16:00 at the location of the appointment to take my spare parts. With the agreement of the chief of station we established our bivouac in the raised enclosure of the Workshop. Alas towards 21:00 the higher authority refused our presence, we had to go on the carpark of the hotel where Yang had took a room.

The road track 
from Guiyang to Ya'an 
from the 13/09/2006 to the 15/09/2006 

The 14/09 we left as of 08:00 to go to Dazu to visit the well-known cliff of Baoding in shape of horseshoe including 30 caves or carved niches of Buddhist scenes in syncretism with the Confucianism and the Taoism.
The finished visit we continued our way by the highway until Zigong where a deposit of tubes accommodated us on the guarded carpark for the night with the promise to leave as of 07:00.

Niche 5, personifying three Bodhisattva 
Dazu, caves of Baoding
14/09/2006 

Niche n°11, Nirvana of the Buddha 
Dazu, caves of Baoding 
14/09/2006 

The 15/09 we left as of 07:00 to go from Zigong to Leshan. The road until RongXian is completely smashed, we reached it after two hours of martyrdom. Then the road became asphalted but very embossed by the heavy trucks. We arrived in Leshan towards 11:30. To admire the Giant Buddha statue of the 71 meters height dug in cliff at the edge of the river, we took a boat which makes the outward trip and the return in 30 minutes starting from opposite bank. Unfortunately the sky was covered and polluted, the spectacle was not as imposing as the photographs of art books and of postcards show it.
We took again the highway until Ya'an where we bivouacked on a service area.

The Giant Buddha 
Leshan 
15/09/2006 

Since Giuyang the temperature had become more moderated, 24°C the day and 19°C the night with fog or pollution and drizzle.

The road tracklog 
from Ya'an to Lijiang 
from the 16/09/2006 to the 17/09/2006 

The day of the 16/09 started with full of diesel with unpleasant surprised rationing as in Quanzhou. But here a reality burst, it acts, allegedly, of a limitation with 1,000 CNY increased with a 10% tax. Thus the price of the litre of 4.82 became 5.30 CNY the litre. The highway finishes shortly after Ya'an and continuous by the G108 road. It consists of very degraded concrete flagstones. There were several Chinese stoppers caused by the heavy too long trucks for the hairpins of the mountain road which curves in a deep very boxed valley. The highway from Chengdu to Ya'an will be prolonged until Panzhihua. The houses of the crossed villages are gradually destroyed to allow the construction of the future highway. None of these villages will remain, quid of the populations! The Chinese State single landowner knows neither expropriation nor pre-emption. In China a house belongs during 50 years to its owner at the end of this period the Chinese State can require its destruction without recourse, before this period it must pay a nonnegotiable allowance.
Left towards 8:30 we arrived towards 18:30 in Shimian, that is to say 250 kilometres in 10 hours stops included. The bivouac was established in a carpark of the center town near the hotel where Yang had taken a room. The weather was gloomy with rain and fog.

The 17/09 was also a day of mountain roads of very variable quality, either battered and muddy, or in concrete flagstones, or part of highway before and after XiChang. At the toll gate of XiChang we changed guide, Liu the new guide from Lhassa is English speaking. The bivouac was installed in LuXian, at approximately 60 Kilometres from Panzhihua, in the courtyard of the hotel where Liu had taken a room. We covered 341 kilometres in 10 hours stops included. The day was sunny.

The trunk road G108 
on the move 
17/09/2006 

The day of the 18 started under the rain as of early dawn, 07:00. The road from LuXian to Lijiang is not in bad condition. But we were slowed down by two Chinese stoppers which lasted respectively approximately 40 and 20 minutes.  Moreover we stopped to make purchases of food then to lunch, that is to say approximately two hours. Finally we arrived in Lijiang towards 19:00 where we established the bivouac on the central carpark. Thus the 353 kilometres were made in 9 hours at the mean speed of approximately 39 km/h. From Panzhihua the weather is cleared up and the landscape became dramatic.

Landscape 
Lijiang 
18/09/2006 

Then the serious things started with roads 214 and 318 towards Lhasa, to be continued…