Lessons from doing it alone

"The road freezes and the vehicle slipped," he said.

Wang sat beside me saying "it's better to have two of us on the trip than one."

She had just completed an entrance exam for postgraduates and was traveling around Yunnan on her own. After the crash, we developed a kind of friendship.

Four women continued the rest of the journey celebrating our escape from a possible disaster.

Speaking about the treacherous route, the driver, who called himself Brother Jun, said: "Twenty years ago, there was no road. We had to drive on four steel tubes to cross the mountains.

"The drivers were often nervous. I used to help them to cross one by one."

We only made him promise to "drive slowly when returning."