Oh how we
laughed at our chinglish itinerary euphemising today’s driving as ‘dancing on
the roads’. To be fair, it was a little bit like break dancing (and being beaten up at the
same time), but that’s where the euphemism ended. The tiny road wound around
and around some stunning mountains, but also trafficked enormous lorries and
the occasional suicidal maniac taking blind corners at speed and trying to avoid the toll roads. At about 6pm we were
still about 230km from our destination and started to look for somewhere to
camp.
The problem
was the road was cut into the side of the mountains, so nowhere was flat. Just
as everyone was starting to get over the dancing, we came to massive lake – but
even down the dirt tracks, we couldn’t get to it. As we drove around, we
realised it was a dam, and the dam wall provided a perfect flat surface for
camping. It was nearly dark, and we had no other good ideas, so Yingchu bounded
off to ask the dam security guard if we could pitch up on his wall, to which he
happily obliged; our first dam chinese camping experience...
