With our clothes smelling delicious and our our bodies recovered (well as much as we could) we packed up our backpacks once more and checked out of our cute hostel in shaxi.. Before boarding the the minivan back to jianchuan we created the mother of all breakfast... 2 long (but unfortunately sweet) baguettes from the bakery, went next door to the 'pointer lady' and ordered 4 fried eggs in which together create the cheapest awesomeness around. For the two goopy eg...

Leaving the uninspiring city of deqin was a great feeling. Yes the breakfast was delicious but the town itself is dismal! So off we go. The bus journey was pretty cool. The LP says during the 7 hour journey you will cross 5000m twice!!! Unsure whether it was the placebo effect of not but all 3 of us felt pretty rough at certain points in the Journey.. My head was pounding.. We were certain it was altitude sickness. Pretty cool huh!? Haha. The views of the towerin...

Dimaluo to deqin trek: The trek story starts in bingzhongluo... In preparation we eat a big feast the night before, sort our bags out so we have one extra heavy backpack (for the porter) and one light backpack for us to rotate on an hourly basis during the 4 day hike and strip our already lean backpacks down to shear necessities (which means no shampoo or conditioner bottles :/). Day 1: 8km trek to dimaluo... Carrying everything we own we leave dimaluo a little...

Freshened up with baby wipes and a quick wash in the outside basin of the old mans garage/house complex we headed next door to the bus station... By 7am we were on the raggedy bus with yogurt drinks and water. Today the bus journey was heading further north up the Nu Jiang valley.. The scenery is just awe-inspiring.. Its a narrow road hugging the edge of huge mountains with the raging river beside you.. Waterfalls of all sizes connect the river... Brilliant blue ...

Packing our backpacks once again we check out of the cute hostel in tengchong with mild annoyance with the checkout girls screwing us again.. We leave for Bingzhongluo... But first we need to bus to Liuku before connecting onwards. This bus deal in China is pretty damn good. The buses range from oldschool, rickerty and a tad derelict but still ok.. Or the the other end of the scale the buses are pristine with a hostess who provides water and wipes and also let's...