The intel we acquired about the buses was as good as what you would get from any Russian spy – utterly useless. The 11h30 bus had apparently left at 10h15 and the buses mixed in amongst the Sunday market along the main street were all heading in the wrong direction. Eventually we were called to a bus which proceeded to trawl up and down the street a few times to make sure there was no one else in the village heading in the same direction.

If the roads yesterday were 10/10 bad, today started at a 15 and got worse – you could not have done more damage with heavy artillery. After 45mins of dodging potholes the bus pulled over at a crossroads :gps:(GPS)::25.96122::109.11547:gps: in the middle of nowhere and we were escorted off and vaguely directed to wait for a bus heading in another direction. I was nervous about the prospect. 20 minutes passed and a mini-bus pulled up asking a price that was unreasonable. Raffaele and Simonetta (R&S) tried in vain to negotiate a better deal so we decided to wait. It wasn’t long before we were on another local bus and bouncing our way through the potholes towards Congjiang. It was a tough ride with being at the back of a bus which lacked functioning shock absorbers, but the rural countryside was pleasant.

Arriving in Congjiang we decided to follow R&S in their plans to visit a the small Dong village of Zenchong. Our timing was perfect as the ticket desk lady led us through the station to a bus about to pull out (actually it would have been good to have taken a short break and found some supplies – but what can you do). Again the roads were terrible but the scenery was quite dramatic and mountainous. Riding these roads is pretty terrifying and you soon understand why they love using their hooters as much as they do – to warn oncoming traffic around blind corners when the roads are barely wide enough. Two and a half jarring hours later and we arrived in another dive of a city – Ronjiang. Unfortunately it seemed to us that the ticket lady mis-understood where we wanted go – but it would shortly become clear.

Another city, another ‘conversation’ with a bus ticket clerk for V. It seemed that there were no buses going where we wanted to go and we were directed to the mini-buses across the street. An extended negotiation ensued with R&S managing to knock the price down from £30 to £24 before we accepted. This was still very high but we were running out of options with evening approaching. Just outside Ronjiang we turned off the ‘road’ and it became clear why there are no buses. Our little mini bus (the one that could) climbed (painfully for it and us) the most rocky, bumpy, narrow, windy and utterly stunning mountain pass that I have ever seen. I am apparently pretty gushy when I write sometimes, so here I’ll just say “GUSH” and leave it at that. A broken down truck on the road delayed us a little more but eventually, after about two hours, reached the village of Zenchong as daylight was fading – that was a long day on the ‘road’ !

Zenchong is tiny (possibly 0.25sq km) village tucked up against a hill and surrounded by a river. It is well off the beaten track and is relatively untouched by tourism meaning there are no hotels or restaurants. We started walking through the narrow alleyways in the dark and came across a ‘shop-front’ that was open and lively with kids running around generally excited by foreign visitors. Asking for a place to sleep (using gestures) the shopkeeper seemed happy to help and got on his cell to his brother who was able to translate what we wanted. There was a lot of confusion but we eventually secured a small room for the four of us. The home (attached to the storefront) was beyond basic and without a shower or reasonable sanitation. I was nervous.

The translator (I think the family name is Wan/Wang) arrived from the next village a little later and things were looking up. He is an English teacher at a local school and was a great help and and all-around nice guy (too good to be true maybe?). We now had a room with a bed and an extra mattress on the floor which Raffaele immediately set about converting into a boudior. From his pack he produced white sheets, mosquito net, electric mosquito mat and a kettle element. V is never going to let me forget that… Thanks Raffaele 🙂 Dinner was also on the go – we agreed on chicken – and the lady of the house wasted no time in retrieving a live one from a basket in the kitchen and, well, cooking it. I seem to remember something about avian flu starting in this kind of place when chickens, pigs, horses, dogs, cats and people are all living on top of each other with poor sanitation… This is precisely where we found ourselves – oh well – no way out now !

Dinner was far from good. The chicken, which due to the lack of meat I can only assume was anorexic, was prepared in the traditional Chinese way: whack it into small pieces with a cleaver so that each morsel contains more bones and splinters than meat, then fry the entire thing, head, feet and all. The locally farmed and freshly roasted peanuts where the only part I found palatable and the look of fungus on my chopsticks gave my stomach the jitters. Anyway – we ate.

Up until this point we were truly enjoying the adventure of being immersed in real rural Chinese life. The dodgy food and accommodation just added to the story. That all changed after dinner when we managed to pin the Wans down on cost. Raffaele had repeatedly asked for costs all evening and was consistently told ‘everything will be fine’. They wanted £11 for the meal and another £9 for the room. For that price in most places we would have gotten two rooms with private bathroom and shower (possibly with air-con) and a good meal. It was outrageous. R&S led the charge (V and I are still terrible at bargaining and we hid in the background). It was really uncomfortable and soured what would have been a wonderful end to the day. Our negotiating position was terrible since it was so late and in the end the price was reduced to a total of £16. We headed up-ladder to our room feeling genuinely discontent.

[Pictures: At a crossroads close to nowhere, V and R return after checking out the broken down truck on the way up to Zenchong]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi