By Andy
2010/05/23 — 90 km
The view climbing out of Danjia, by Andy
Right away Devi gets to witness our interminable stupidity. After another noodly breakfast, we climb 10 km out of town up cobblestone roads. The laoban at breakfast had told us to “just keep going straight” while motioning wildly to the right when we asked her how to get to Mengsheng (勐省), the halfway point on our trip to Gengma. So when at the top of the 10 km climb we get to a fork in the road, we head right and down the bumpy, cobblestone path for 4.5 km. When the disappears on the other side of a small town, I ask an old man the way to Mengsheng. I’m not exactly surprised when he points back up the hill and tells me to go the other way at the fork.
Half an hour later, we’re at the top again and taking the proper turn, which leads us down a few sit-bones-busting kilometers of cobblestones before finally spitting us out on the provincial road, which to our surprise, is completely torn up and under construction. The biggest reason we decided to take this route of crazy mountain roads was to avoid massive stretches of torn up provincial roads with trucks kicking dust up into our faces.
Good old construction for endless kilometers!
But here we are, and at least it’s downhill. In fact, we finally get to cash in all the elevation karma we’ve built up over the past few days in the mountains as we clamber down the uneven slope, descending for a full 20 km into the valley where we hit Mengsheng for lunch.
On our way out of Mengsheng we ask five or six times how to get to Gengma, each time receiving different answers. Some have never even heard of the place, which is the county seat of the next county over. Others tell us to head back up to the torn up provincial road high above, while others tell us to head down the hill and out of town. Eventually enough people tell us to go out of town until we get to a bridge that we figure that’s probably the way to go. (more…)
