Had a lovely drive from Puer this morning to Yuanyang (can be spelt differently) We were “tail end Charlie” which we really enjoyed. We only had to make sure all the cars had made turns etc.

Morning tea and lunch spots in the hills…passed alongside a river they call the Red River.

Arrived at Yuanyang rice terraces mid afternoon…had photo stops and then walked to view sunset over the terraces. The area is beautiful and the different lights showed off the terraces at different times.

The Hani ethnic people are wonderful. we are staying in a hotel/hostel and had dinner at a Hani restaurant. The food was amazing.

This mornings drive was to the Botanic Gardens about 90 mins drive from Mohan. The largest botanic gardens in China. We parked our cars and explored some of the area on foot. They were absolutely stunning…from the orchid display to the succulents and the water variety. Although the lotus’ were not flowering the water lilies were in abundance.

After 3 hours here and a quick picnic lunch we continued on our way to Puer, famous for its black tea. In fact as I write this I have a pot of loose tea brewing!

As can easily happen with cars that are over 40 years old, one of them had problems today. The mechanics amongst our group tried simple solutions and then worked through replacing spark plugs, spark plug leads, the distributor cap, the ignition coil and finally the distributor itself.  The car still was having problems and the last 8 kms was towed to the hotel by one of the others. However eventually it was decided it was a failed fuel pump. Fortunately we will all be on the road tomorrow.

Today we headed off  with about an hours drive to the Laos/China border. The road we had travelled on yesterday and was windy. We even passed a truck that we had seen on the road that had overturned coming down a hill. Assumption is brake failure and its cargo of beer was destroyed.

We arrived at the border and formalities went very quickly and both persons and cars passed through out of Laos and into China. Green, our guide for China, met us at the border and helped with formalities for our entry. Chinese visas had been obtained prior to leaving Australia.

We continued our drive to Mohan and checked into the hotel about 2pm. At 3 we all assembled and drove our cars to organise our Chinese driving licences and plates for our cars. With Greens help this was all achieved and we enjoyed the end to our day as we planned the activities for tomorrow and had our first meal in China!

Today was a driving day to get us close to the Chinese border which we will cross tomorrow. We left Luang Prabang at 8.00am in our usual convoy and Vulcan was lead car for the day. The route took us up very windy roads and the calls on the radio were to avoid not just potholes and trucks broken down but the occasional water buffalo and hens wandering the road. Of course in the villages nestled next to the road, the road was the children’s ” backyard” so they had to be avoided too!

Morning tea stop was a market site with the wooden stalls…empty as today wasn’t a market day. Our short stop there revived us and we continued on until lunch when we stopped on a hilltop. It is difficult choosing a spot for 8 cars to stop at…ideally with shade.  However as our first day with this to do…it was fairly successful.

We  reached our hotel at 3.30…. in need of a shower after the dust. Photos for today as the views were magnificent will have to wait until the internet allows me to post them on the blog. For today…just words.

Tomorrow China!