Making sense of life on a remote cliff top

The steel-tube ladder is steep, 60 degrees, but it is safer than the old rattan ladder that consisted of nose-to-tail 17 sections on way to an 800-meter-high cliff. The new ladder, coated with blue antirust paint, came into use on Monday. And for more than 20 children of the Yi ethnic group from Le'er village, Zhaojue county in Southwest China's Sichuan province, the vertigo-prone journey to and from school has become easier, so to say.

It took the local government about six months and 1 million yuan ($145,000) to build the new ladder, which can be used for about 20 years, after the children's dangerous journey to school hit the headlines nationwide. Dozens of families in Le'er village have lived a hand-to-mouth existence on the cliff top, where they took shelter to escape the tribal war more than 200 years ago, according to their oral history.

What is more, they are reluctant to relocate to the foot of the cliff even today fearing the loss of their land. And the county government cannot afford millions of yuan to build a road connecting the village with two small villages deep in the mountainous region.