Every day Zhaoxing has a small market of essential food items (even Dee-Oo-Gee meat...). But since there was going to be a large Sunday market in Ronjiang, we left with our packs and took an early bus to Liping (a bumpy, 4-hour trip). We switched busses halfway because the first one had a problem with its gas lines. In Liping we had to go from one bus station to the other by motor rickshaw for the next 4-hour trip to Ronjiang. And what a surprise: new asphalt almost the whole way! Ronjiang is nothing much: muddy and noisy. Found an OK hotel and had a nice hotpot dinner at the local night market. The next day was again pretty gloomy weather. After cooking us breakfast at a small eatery (some sort of chapati & egg...), Mommy got her cameras and flash ready for the market. It was located in the old and narrow streets of the centre of town. Very lively again with lots of little food stalls, even some Xinjiang Muslims selling raisins. The tobacco section is always nice with the old men smoking old pipes on their haunches. Dentists were treating patients in street side shops and the chicken and duck section was quite noisy and smelly. An interesting part were the nicely dressed Dong ladies selling indigo dye right from plastic bags on the ground, many with their hands dark blue. All in all a worthwhile market for a few hours where papa got some nice video footage too.
Around noon we were back at the bus terminal, got a lunchbox of fried noodles, met Rolf again and were ready for the next 5-hour trip north to Leishan. Same old bus as usual, full of people and all kinds of bags and boxes (even a huge parabolic antenna and 3 dogs on the roof). Following various rivers it was a scenic ride, but higher in the mountains we were mostly in fog. Somewhere in the middle everything came to a halt because of a minor accident ahead between two busses. They had to wait for the police so we just waited outside and "chatted" with some Buddhist monks and nuns (thanks to Papa's phrasebook). Half hour later the 30 or so vehicles started to move again and our driver began a little rally with 3 other busses... Fortunately it didn't last long and the dense fog forced him to slow down. With Rolf we were finally dropped off in Leishan and we had to hike through this non-descript town to find the hotel that would take foreigners, which wasn't bad. After another steamy hotpot meal we went for a much needed night's rest.
