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The end of one month on our New Long March and 600 kilometers down the track in the county town of Yizhang, we're watching a heavy rain darken the day outside our most comfortable lodgings for a fortnight. The Red Army would have pressed on regardless; we are glad of the excuse to rest up, replenish supplies, and go over budget on a top-class foot massage. We're writing this diary in darkness, as this district is in the middle of its second power cut in 24 hours.

Our route has taken us across southern Jiangxi province, the northern mountains of Guangdong, and into southern Hunan. It has been fascinating to see the gradual changes in environment and lifestyles as we move from village to village, and to hear the very sudden changes in language. In many places the tongue of one village is quite incomprehensible to people five kilometers down the road. We give thanks for putonghua.

At the beginning, we both had our turns with illness, and the weather gave us two weeks of miserable wetness. Still, we kept moving and kept our spirits up, and were rewarded with a fortnight of warm sunshine (and the pleasure of reports from the freezing north!). Depending on the steepness of the slopes and the quality of the trails, we have moved between 15 and 41 kilometers a day.

The quality of our maps has also been an unexpectedly significant factor. It's interesting how much faith we invest in something just because it's drawn up with official approval and printed on nice paper. The other day in the village of Jingpo (Rucheng county, Hunan) we stopped to ask how to get on the road to Yanshou-nice straight black line clearly marked on our map. One of a group of middle-aged locals said: 'There's no road. You have to go south first, via Xiaoyuan.'

"Nonsense," we said, pointing across a field to where we could see a three-wheeled agricultural vehicle chugging along. "There's a road right over there where the map says it should be." That road doesn't go to Yanshou, insisted our adviser. Rubbish, we said.
Well, maybe it does, conceded another man, but you'll never find the way.

How could the map be wrong? we reasoned, so off we went. And for the first few kilometers we felt vindicated. The road was fine, we reached the first village marked on the map, and the locals said, yes, carry on straight ahead for Yanshou.
And then the road started to get narrower. And narrower. Until, that is, we reached a point where it became a path about a foot wide leading straight up into the mountains that lined the north side of the valley.

The sun was getting low. We met a group of children-two boys, two girls, all brothers and sisters-cutting and binding rice stalks on their day off from school. That path's really hard, they said, very easy to get lost. We were finally convinced, and let our new friends lead us to the highway south to Xiaoyuan. On the way, we stopped for a bowl of rice soup with the kids' father, who told us the path we had found was that taken by Zhu De and his troops in 1934. Everywhere we go we find memories and stories of the Red Army's passage.

We have been greeted by great hospitality all the way, and often overwhelmed by the curiosity of children who have never seen a foreigner before. In many village centers, the school gathers children from all around the district. In a place that seems tiny, you can find a school with 500 students.

In Shuangyuan, a village in northern Anyuan County (Jiangxi), it seemed every single one came out to greet us and clamor for a photograph. The teachers emerged to see what the fuss was about, and within half an hour Ed found himself answering questions in front of a 60-strong English class. The Mid-autumn Festival was not long past, and the children were keen to know if this was anything like Thanksgiving.
Um, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in England, said Ed. Perhaps we left them with more questions than answers.

Although we have had plenty of 25-degree days down in the valleys, up in the mountainous home of the Yao people in southern Rucheng county (Hunan) we could feel the chill of the approaching winter. We are grateful to be in a province where the locals don't fear hot peppers, but know that the months to come will test us much more severely that the one just past. We'll keep you posted.