In the morning we drove to the small town of Xindhe to change my brakes. The rear brakes were well-worn but the front ones werent too bad.
The road to Jiangcheng was mostly country road which got worse as we approached the town until it suddenly turned into excellent tarmac. The countryside consists of high ridges of clay (which are prone to landslides) and deep valleys, and the road runs close to the tops of the ridges to minimise the effects of landslides. However there were many landslides and we saw the occasional digger and bulldozer parked at the side of the road waiting for the next landslide. The road consisted of one sharp bend after another, but at each bend there was a spectacular view of the valley below. We passed through a succession of ramshackle villages made of ugly concrete buildings with chickens, ducks, geese and dogs in the street and sweet corn drying at the side of the road. I saw a big snake wiggling its way across the road, and liana creepers hanging down from the trees occasionally gave the windscreen a heavy knock as we passed, but no damage done. The landscape was glorious with terraces of maize and rice and huge plantations of bananas and tea.
We got to Jiangcheng after dark and camped in a carpark near the city centre. People were line dancing in a big square, and we had a nice meal cooked by Melody and Matthieu.
