taking the long way home

liupanshui – rest day

life in slow motion…. we try to extend our visa …. every little task seems to take hours!? making copies of the passports, getting a printout from the internet, finding a place to make new visa pictures… (as they need to have a blue background!?!? they top the “new” picture requirements for a usa visa!) the city is filled with shops and supermarkets who seem to sell all the same limited assortment. 50 shops for mobile phones in one building….

checking out a different vehicle while waiting for the pictures

the crew from the photo studio

safty first!? the inside of a taxi

lao hei shan – liupanshu

57,16km 581 alti meter

once again a “improvisation” on my front rack, as it suffered on the gravel roads the last 2 days…. at every stop we are quickly surrounded by a big crowed looking at us. some more hills passing coal mines until we reach the “coal capital” of the area.

looks like “working in a coal mine”!?

huanguashu falls – lao hei shan

79,59km 1503 alti meter

the side road through this karst hills is steep and windy. we stopped the 2nd time on our trip to help someone getting their vehicles back on track. the drivers don´t seem upset at all!? they just stand there with their mobile phones in the hand and  smoke one, two or three cigarettes… things move slowly… they don´t stop other people for help and the people that stop seem only to see whats going on (or down) smoke a cigarette and leave again.

the tent sound system 😉

tuk-tuk going wild!?

longgong – huanguashu falls

48,19km 722 alti meter

after a noodle soup breakfast we left to see the huanguashu water falls. the expected and unexpected expenses of the last days damped our moods a little, so getting the overpriced tickets to see the water falls for the student price brought back some sunshine. after some steep gravel roads we found a great camp spot with amazing view.

with this words you win every scrabble game!

anshun – longgong

47,42km 318 alti meter

we checked the local police station to see if we can extend our visa here or if we can do that in the next city. the traffic gets more crazy around here. (less bikes but more reckless taxi drivers / bus drivers and a constant horn honking “concert”). we found a helpful police man who spoke pretty good english and decided to extend the visa in liupanshui in a couple of days. before riding out of the city we visited the buddhist temple. the short ride to the longgong caves was hilly at the end, but the caves are really nice. the night we spent at the house of mrs. yuan. she works as a guide at the caves and is very interested in improving her english. this gave her a short english lesson and us a little insight in the way people life and think.

kaili – anshun (300km on the train)

nice train ride from kaili to anshun although they took my fuel bottle and fuel pump off the trailer at the train station in kaili without telling me!? to find replacement or gas canisters will be difficult around here, but for now we still have the stove from alex.