The journey back

After we completed the trek, we were expecting a straightforward little trip down the newly completed road.  Once we got in the minibus a German woman told us that the 20km trip to the next town would likely take about 1 1/2 hours due to various things including a landslide.  Sure enough, the road was still under construction, so it all took a little longer to negotiate than you might think.  Half way through we had to get out of our minibus, walk through a tunnel and wait at the other end whilst some boulders rolled down the hill (this was the "landslide" - basically just a digger a bit higher the hill).  We then jumped in another minibus and discovered some road which had been introduced to tarmac.  As predicted, after a total of about 1.5 hours and about 20 km we made it to Qiaotou where we needed to find another bus to get us back to Lijiang.  Thankfully, one of our minibus companions was a Mandarin speaker and all went swimmingly.  She was travelling with a French guy and thus our minibus seemed to reflect accurately the travellers we have encountered here - primarily French and German, with some Israelis thrown in.