We got held up in the morning by an accident on the road between Duoshaguan and the motorway, and the planned visit to a Taoist temple was a bit of a disaster as the attraction includes a lot of other things to see and would have taken too long. They would only give a 50% discount to see the temple. The motorway passed through a succession of extremely long tunnels with tantalising glimpses of the old road far in the valley below. It follows the river, winding its way round the mountains and would have been much longer than the motorway, assuming it hadnt been blocked by landslides or collapsed into the river. The farmers’ homes, some of which are quite substantial, are perched precariously on the sides of the steep mountains while every available inch on all but the steepest slopes, are cultivated with narrow strips or small patches sown with maize. A glorious landscape. Zhantong and Dongchuan have huge tower blocks in sharp contrast to the beautiful countryside.
We stopped at a service area and had duck legs and crispy fried chicken for 12 yuan each. In the evening we reached a car park on the edge of the Golden Temple complex at Kunming as it was getting dark, and it was too late to see the Temple so we had a nice meal cooked by Sonia and Jim and went to bed.
