The bus journey from Yuncheng to RUICHENG , 90km south, a village just north of the Yellow River, is an engrossing if hair-raising trip across the Zhongtiao Mountains, an ochre landscape of utter desolation. Occasionally the bus stops at some lonely peak and, astonishingly, people get off. Though the sense of travelling through a wilderness leaves when you pull into Ruicheng, you are still very much in an isolated and backward part of China, and foreigners attract a lot of attention: courteous strangers may offer you their seat on a bus or canteen owners insist that your meal is on the house. The bus pulls in just east of the crossroads of Ruicheng's four streets, not far from the Ruicheng Binguan (¥75-100) on the north side of the west road.