1. start with '<ol><li>foo</li></ol><ol><li>bar</li></ol>'
2. convert to markdown with pandoc
3. convert back to html

The markdown should have two bare lists. They are instead paragraph lists.

using pandoc 1.5.1.1 with ghc 6.12.3

There is no documented syntax to disambiguate separate lists. Perhaps an escaped line break?: 1. foo 2. bar \ 1. eat 2. sleep

looking at closed issues, this is related to Ability to have two consecutive lists http://code.google.com/p/pandoc/issues/detail?id=77 Maybe inserting a blank comment in between consecutive lists is a better approach

Yes, I think that's the best way.