Day 55, 33km:(by Amy)

We slept really well in the nicest hotel of the trip so far for just £8. A lovely little family run courtyard hotel complete with deluge shower head in the ensuite bathroom. Thankfully the last 10km of main road was flat and passed quickly. Then we headed into the hills on a little country road. The valleys were full of rice paddies with people brining the harvest in wearing traditional straw hats and using horses to carry the bundles. We had lunch on a hill top under the trees then headed into Shaxi. Shaxi is the best preserved village on the ancient tea-horse road used since AD 618 to trade tea from Southern Yunnan for horses from Tibet. The route no longer exists but it is still a pretty little town with lots of very old buildings and temples. We went for a walk around the surrounding area in the afternoon looking at temples and an old theatre. We also found a herbal medicinal garden built by a botanical team from the university of Zurich in conjunction with the villagers which sadly had fallen into disrepair.