06-Jul-2008 -- Story continues from 33°N 114°E.

At 1 p.m. we are on a bus north to Xǔchāng City (许昌市). We are the only two passengers! We tell the driver that we want to go to Zhāngpān Town (张潘镇), and just before 4 p.m., he lets us off at a major intersection 14.6 km due west of the confluence, from where we are able to get straight onto a no. 201 commuter bus to Zhāngpān.

We get off the commuter bus at a pedestrian crossing 460 m south of the confluence, which marks the beginning of a small dirt road, nestled between two houses. We follow this road north, crossing an intersection with another dirt road, and continuing straight on until we see the large burial mound described by Ray Yip up ahead on our left.

Ignoring the workers in the fields, who in any case are engrossed in their own task of spraying bug killer, we make our way 80 m across the wheat-cum-cornfields to the confluence, and snap the GPS photo and shots facing north, south, east and west.

The ancient burial mound is a few dozen metres further on to the north, and we do a circumnavigation of it, stopping to chat with one of the poison sprayers, who tells us a bit of the history. He explains that, impressive though it is, this is in fact only the "rear mound" of a grave; the main mound, which was much bigger, was levelled back around the time of Liberation (1949) to make way for more crops.

Following our successful visit, we catch another no. 201 commuter bus into Xǔchāng, where we check into the very good value-for-money Xǔchāng Grand Hotel (许昌大酒店) for the night. From the short amount of time we spend in Xǔchāng, we rate this as one of China's more hospitable cities - a nice place.

Story continues at 34°N 115°E.