The slow, rocky road to Song Pan / Highwaymen (part 2)

Moving on...leaving Lagamusi we head deeper into Sichuan Province and before long the mountains fall away, and we've driving wide, empty highways that run through marshy grassland, spooling out to the horizon like some forgotten page from the Great American Road-trip, until....red tailights flicker, and traffic up ahead starts to nudge up nose to bumper. A rural traffic jam, cars and lorries pulled to a halt on the other wise empty carriage way behind a police car blocking off the road ahead. The problem, we are informed, is roadworks, of the kind that apparently involve closing off the whole highway in both directions for the next two hours. But fear not! A ready diversion is at hand, a mere 36 kilometres across the grassland on unmade, mud and stone-flint roads. We join the line of traffic peeling off from the main road to our left, start to rumble up the track until, a hundred or so metres further on, another halt. This time the cause is more readily apparent - two local entrepreneurs, swaddled up in cloths like Touareg tribesmen, stopping each and every vehicle and demanding money in return for safe onward passage. OK, it was only 20 y (about £2.50) to buy our freedom, but multiply that up by the dozens upon dozens of vehicles that must have had to make the detour, and you have a tidy sum. General wisdom was that the laconic cop in the police car on the roadblock would probably do OK out of it too. Ye Gods! Superintendent Hastings would have a fit - you lot better get your arses down to Sichuan Province - we've got a bent copper taking backhanders on a roadblock!
The upside of a slow and sizeable detour was the opportunity to roll through some of the local villages en route - life boiled down to its absolute bare essentials. Emerging back onto the main road, it is interesting to note that there is no corresponding roadblock, no diversion signs, no roadworks. Which makes you wonder, but no matter: we were back on tarmac again, and moving at speed. But not for long. Only a few km on, the traffic starts to slow and back up once more and then, sure enough, we roll to a halt yet again. And yet again the explanation is roadworks, but this time there is no "diversion", no Dick Turpins. Instead what there is, is a wait in a largely good-natured queue for over an hour, nothing moving, nothing happening. When traffic finally starts to move again there is a stampede, every vehicle in the line trying to get ahead of the others. But passing through past the line of stopped traffic waiting to come in the opposite direction, there is no really obvious reason why anything was ever stopped at all.
Closing in on Song Pan the scenery takes on a more alpine hue, the road sweeping between high, forested mountainside, shadowing the path of a meandering river. The town itself is perfectly pleasant - built up from next to nothing in recent years to cater for (mostly Chinese) tourism, it has a slightly fake feel with all the newly-built faux-ancient wood buildings, and its the only place I can remember where the newer part of the town is inside the city walls. But its nice enough, pleasant to stroll around, and handily situated for the nearby Mo Su Li National Park which we visit next day - a stunning collection of waterfalls and crystal clear emerald green lakes, beautiful in the sunshine which, with great fortune, appears out of nowhere to accompany our morning visit. The park is very carefully managed, with a well-maintained boarded walkway all the way round, plentiful signage and more toilets and litter bins than you could ever need. In a way, its a bit of a metaphor for the China we've seen so far - much done for the clear benefit of all, with the clear proviso that you keep to the path and relinquish any thought of wandering where you will.