Day 8, 65km: (by Amy)

We had a bit of a late start as I had a puncture in my trailer.

 As we set off it started to rain and didn't stop until late

 afternoon. The gorge was very pretty but the road became an

 unpaved quagmire around the next town and we got coated in mud.

 After a while the road became paved again and we cruised slightly

 downhill alongside the river for most of the day. Just before

 we hit the main rd there was another set of roadworks diverting

 us onto an unpaved potholed bog. Unfortunately the trailer

 bouncing in the potholes pulled my back wheel off and bent my

 disc brake. Chris had to do some serious fixing at the junction

 and we attracted a huge crowd who I attempted to distract and

 entertain so Chris could fix my bike. Thank goodness for the

 translator which meant I could tell them where we were from

 and about our trip. With the bikes fixed we made it the 

of the way to Lueyang, Chris went to find a hotel while

 I washed the worst of the mud off the bikes so we'd be 

allowed to put them in the room. Chris came back having

 found a nice hotel but while we were taking our stuff in

 a member of the public said something to the proprietor

 and suddenly we were no longer allowed to stay. It turns out

 this hotel was not ok for foreigners. The apologetic proprietor

 took Chris to the reception of a posh hotel around the corner

. Chris (covered in mud) explained we would rather stay in the 

cheap hotel. This helped to significantly lower the price of the

 posh hotel but we were still made to stay there. I felt bad for

 the other hotel which was just as nice but since we got it for

 a bargain rate and there was a lift to take our stuff up we

 didn't really mind. We went for a wander round town that evening

 and ate some noodles that were so good we had 2 bowls each from a street food

vendor.