Day 53 Wed 25 October Dechin, Yunnan to Markam, Tibet

A crisp frosty morning with stunning views from near the guest house over glaciers and snowcapped mountains. It soon turned out to be the scariest day so far, amazing scenery but nightmare roads zigzagging up mountain sides and dropping to sunless gorges, as we cross the ranges between the Yangze and the Mekong rivers which run parallel about 30kms apart separated by 6000m mountain ranges. The rivers are ranging torrents which have carved deep chasms between the mountains with near vertical sides, over which the Chinese have blasted and chiselled what are shown on the map as highways, but which are really yak herding tracks. The navigator spend most of the time clinging onto the door handle with eyes tight shut but was reliably informed that the mountains were spectacular. At odd times we passed thru Tibetan villages busy with goats, children, yaks, pigs and dzo (cross between yak and cow), hay drying in the trees or on the roofs of the mud brick houses. The houses are quite large, squarish with slightly inward sloping walls and central courtyard, usually painted white with a large balcony supported by two massive tree trunks. They have flat roofs for drying corn and hay, and are richly decorated both in carvings and colour around the eaves.

The Tibetan people seem very friendly and wave with broad smiles before we engulf them in clouds of dust. The women are in colourful costumes and as usual appear to do most of the work. By contrast the han Chinese are less interested in the passing traffic.

After a gruelling, hair raising drive dodging 12 wheel trucks, land-cruisers, potholes and falling stones, as well as light snow flurries we make it to Markam at 6pm, a drab town lying at 3900m and find a room in possibly the unnecessarily grubbiest hotel of the 50 or so we have seen so far. Still it has electric blankets and warm duvets so we manage to get to sleep dreaming of hotels in Thailand. Why they build these hotels and then fail to do anything in the way of cleaning or maintenance baffles us – but then most of china is like this. More yak meat but still no margaritas.
Weather -1, Mainly sunny
Distance today 219km
Distance from start 11,436km
Scary Road Index: V High