The Great Wall’ker

We are back in Wuwei after a 31 km walk. I got a separate room so that I can chat with friends etc without disturbing Jon. I even got a room on the quiet side of the hotel. On the other side you can hear the constant beeping of the cars in the street just outside. The room is towards the quiet side. Or is it…?

Get this: There is a dog out there that has been barking CONSTANTLY the last two hours. Now that’s fine, but this is the part I just can’t get: Of all the 75 apartments pointing straight out at the barking dog, why isn’t there a SINGLE SOUL that gets as aggravated as I do because of the constant barking!?!? Is it the local mafia boss that owns the dog or something?

I got dressed to go down and personally take care of the issue, but just remembered that my door key card has run out, so I would have to use an additional 20 minutes at the reception to get it sorted out.

But what is it? Is the culture over here so dog-loving that it lets ONE dog ruin the evening of about 150 people? Or is it simply that they don’t mind? I’m paying that dog’s owner a visit tomorrow… He may not understand Norwegian, but I think he’ll get the general idea. Right now I have Dire Straits on the MP3 player and the volume is high enough to kill (hee hee) the dog barks. I’m slowly going crazy…

Back to the walk. Today’s walk got us down to where the Great Wall re-appears after the reservoir, which I walked around earlier. We stopped just by a bridge and with Jon’s binoculars, we could see both The Wall and Watchtowers in the distance.

A farmer tending his grape vines.

It was very warm today and we drank a lot more than previous days. Luckily we got to a shop towards the end of the day. We tried to avoid the road as much as possible.  This led to the most exciting event today. As we walked in the terrain, we got to an area that was surrounded by barbed wire. This is not unusual, so we got over it, and Jon walked to the other side. But about half way we heard a big crunch, and Jon basically disappeared in the ground! He stopped at about waist level and I helped him crawl out again. We were both pretty shocked, but luckily Jon was not hurt. It looked like a dike, that went under the road, had been covered with branches and leaves. We continued along the road for a while after that…

Friday:

I left the campsite at 9.30 a.m. and continued walking the Great Wall. Soon the gravel I mentioned yesterday was replaced by sand, and things started looking like what most of us conceive as being a desert, the Sahara sand, or in this case the sand from the Tengger Desert. Have a look at the Great Wall Route for today and look to the right.  You will see miles and miles of desert sand dunes.

The Great Wall acted like a barrier between the desert on my left and the green fields on the right. The fields are getting their water from the second biggest reservoir in Asia. It is about 5 kilometres/3 miles long and supplies a lot of the area with water.

Seaside resort by the lake

As I got closer to the reservoir, I got associations to the Mediterranean coast. The sand, the water and comfortable warm weather. There was a building painted in nice colours too. By the time I got to some houses, I was ready to order the biggest beefsteak in the house and some Sangria to wash it down. But there was no restaurant there so I ended up sitting by the edge of the reservoir eating peanuts and biscuits and an Ice Tea drink.

The remainder of the day, I walked on the bank of the reservoir, avoiding the road. The last two days I have not walked much further than before, but I have walked faster and noticed some blisters reappearing. Luckily nothing serious, although one of them really hurts. The new shoes (which don’t look that new any more) are doing their job.

Relaxing in the shade, by the reservoir. This was the first of about 20 pictures of me and different members of this man's extended family.

Today:

Rest day in Wuwei. Have just had yet another really good talk with the best girl in this part of the Universe and have installed a back-up system for the website and also a caching system. I hope to update the last posts with some pictures within the day.

Another piece of really good news: I have been contacted by the Dana-Farber Institute.  They told me that we are soon ready to go online with the sponsoring system. I am doing this walk to raise money for cancer research, and will soon be writing more about how you can contribute to this cause!

Today has been one of those days where things just fell nicely in place. Right now I am in the desert just north of an agricultural area. Jon has decided to stay in Wuwei for a few days and we will meet up on the eastern side of the ‘hook’ we mentioned yesterday.

I got off to a late start and learnt I would have to wait two whole hours for the next bus which would drop me off three kilometres from the last point. So instead I called the same taxi driver we had two days ago and he agreed to drive me to Xi Go. He is a safe driver and I can understand some of the things he says in Chinese!

The first kilometres today went through farmland, but luckily I managed to keep track of The Wall. This is not so easy because it has been levelled to the ground some places and if it changes direction here, it is difficult to track.  After a while, that is exactly what happened but I followed the general direction. Soon I started going westwards to find it, but without much luck. Then I met a farmer and he pointed even further west to what seemed to be an insignificant heap of gravel and said: Chang Cheng - The Great Wall. I followed it but was sceptical. Then I came to a place where locals had extracted the gravel and could see the characteristic sides of the walls of the ehhh… Wall

The Wall under sand and stones

Over hundreds of years, it has been almost completely covered by small grained gravel which has conserved it, in a sense.

I managed to keep a good pace, much thanks to the new jogging shoes. Took a proper break, and then went on. Toward the end of the day, I met a shepherd and although we didn’t understand each other very much, we had a good talk and many smiles. He kindly said I could follow him home for food and water, but he pointed in the direction from where I had come, so I politely said no. He enjoyed seeing himself on the back of the digital camera.

The Wall was not as grand here, but as the sun started setting, the light played beautifully on the remains of the Great Wall. Several times, I considered making a detour to stock up on water. Luckily I waited till close to the end of the walk when I asked a guy if there was a shop close by. He pointed me in the direction of a small village. I started walking towards it, but soon the same guy drove up to me on his MC and asked me to hop on.

He drove me to the front door of the shop. A crowd of about ten locals came in the shop to see who I was. I told them about the walk and that although I can speak some Chinese, my understanding is pretty poor. I bought 2.5 litres of water and a noodles packet that I ate for dinner. Instead of hanging around answering ‘Sorry mate - I can’t understand you’ (Ting bu dong in Chinese) I sat down beside a bunch of guys playing Chinese chess. It would be fun to learn the basics of the game while I am here. Knew the basics back in 2001 after four months of Tai Chi in Borneo, but it’s gone now.

When I left the village, one of the guys warned me that there were wild dogs in the desert. But looks like they are not making much of a fuss tonight…

So I’m alone here now and it is SO quiet! Not in a scary way, but peaceful.

When I got here, the sun had already gone down and there was only half an hour left of light. I went to the Great Wall and placed the SPOT satellite transmitter at a slightly southern angle and then activated the ‘OK’ sequence which is the one that will show up on the map tomorrow morning. Then I set up the tent and got things ready for the night. I noticed something slighty larger than a mouse running around, so have closed all the pockets of the rucksack. When I went to the SPOT device, it had just finished sending the third positional message. (for redundancy)

The weather has been great today. Slightly overcast, a little breeze and a little above 20 degrees C. Even though I didn’t start walking the Great Wall before 2 p.m., I’ve covered 25 kilometres, in addition to two off route (and one on the back of the motorcycle) to get to the shop.

Finally a note to the geeks and nerds following this site: This website got a Google Pagerank of three this morning. I’m really happy about it, because it took longer than expected.

It rained very heavily several times during the night. When we woke up, the ‘earth’ had turned to mud in many places and since The Wall in this area goes in agriculturally developed places, we decided to skip walking today. We only have ordinary running shoes and didn’t want to spend the day skidding around like a ‘mud ballet’.

We got the bus to Wuwei and have spent most of the day here. More to come…  

Brother Jon

It rained overnight. Phew, good job we were not in our tents. My skin does not need a mud bath at this point. Some say that last year it only rained 2-3 times. Unexpectedly, over the last month it must have rained about 4 or 5 times, not only a few drops, but root drenching. Rain is good for farmers, but not necessarily for walkers. The (loess) earth does not drain water very well, leaving it quite slippery.

To help out our host financially we left 400 RMB under a pillow before leaving. Hope she goes to a doctor with her shoulder. Would be nice to see her reactions!

The wife of the local shop keeper drove us in turn on her motor bike to the nearest road with bus communication to WuWei.

Bye-bye to XiGou for now. Thank you for your hospitality and good nature.

Today’s goal was Xi Gou which means the Western Hook. As you can see on the map, today’s end point is at the western point of a ‘hook’ of the Great Wall.

The drinking game went on till about 1.30 a.m. this morning. The shouting got louder and louder towards the end of the session too, so no sleep until they were finished. We got up a little past 6.30 a.m. and ate breakfast with our hosts.

After taking some pictures, which we will send to them by mail, we bid farewell and continued walking the Great Wall. The first part of the day went quickly and after about 12 kilometres we took a long break to eat oatmeal porridge and catch up on our sleep.

The Great Wall was not as high as we have seen previously and not as wide either. We wondered if it had any definite defensive purpose, or if it was raised to ‘complete’ The Wall in this area.

It was and still is, warm and humid. It rained a little, but that served as a nice way of cooling down, a bit like manna from heaven.

Later in the day we met a 70 year old lady tending her flock of sheep. She immediately invited us to eat in a nearby mud hut. She offered us some white bread and then went to a field close by and came back with some ‘lo bo’ vegetables. (a white leek like vegetable) She had four children, and one of her sons had studied economy at the University in Harbin.

We walked on, hoping to reach Xi Gou by the end of the day. When asking the locals where the place was, some vaguely pointed us onwards, while others told us how many kilometres remained. It turned out we reached the old part of town first, and the newer part was further on.

As we walked down a street diverting from the Great Wall, a woman stopped and simply asked if we wanted to stay at her place for the night. A very nice invitation and right now Jon is making some more oatmeal on her coal stove.

All the people we have met in old Xi Gou have been very nice. Usually a lot of people show up to ‘look at’ the foreigners and say their ‘hello’ and laugh. After we had bought some provisions at the local shop, the owner went outside and went on reading his newspaper. We enjoyed eating and drinking outside without ‘all’ the attention.

Brother Jon

Jon showing the width of the wall in the area.

Today The Wall was in rather good condition. The Wall is about 4m high. Here there was/is not enough room for anyone to stand on top of it. It is a pure defensive and blocking structure, as opposed to sections where a soldier stands on the top and fires missiles outwards.

Distances can be deceptive. Before our regular midday rest, we decided to stop at a line of trees in the distance, in order to get out of the sun. I reckoned it would take 30 minutes to walk there. It actually took nearly 2 hours! We are not usually that bad at estimating, but this time we were caught out. The last 30 minutes my condition dropped fast, aching in my shoulders and little energy. Boy, was I glad to reach the trees! Human bodies are amazing really.  A good helping of porridge and 90 minutes resting on the ground did the trick and I was revitalized.

The first lady we stayed with had a good amiable and strong character. She could not read Chinese, probably due to her childhood being in troublesome times. She seems to have ensured that her children got a good education, despite her poor background. One of her sons studied finance at Harbin Uni in the north of China. Remarkable. She also mentioned that earlier this year a Chinese walker from China’s HeBei province had passed by The Wall.

The second lady we stayed with, actually passed us on her electric moped and in doing so, invited us in for food and the night. How nice is that! She is 55 and had just come back from tending her fields. She lived in a rickety mud house with a courtyard and had a good heart. She seemed happy despite life being hard. Her husband appears to have passed away. We did not want to cause upsets and did not ask further questions about this. She had pains in her shoulder, but had not been to the doctor. Due to her local accent, it was not easy to understand everything, but we still had a good time. Robert and I slept in a side room.

What about the landscape? It’s all flat where we walk. However a more or less continuous mountain ridge is on our northern side as we walk east. The Wall literally hugs the mountain base. The engineers have been real misers in this area, and have not left the ‘outsiders’/Mongolians any space for their own purpose. It all reminded me of the short story by Tolstoy “How much land does a man need?” .  It is about a Russian who moves east to their vast new territories and is promised land equivalent to the land he can encircle within a single day, walking on foot. He walks all day and the sun is hot . His greed leads him to include other lucios sidevalleys. When the sun goes down and he completes the circle, he has gained a lot of land,…… but alas, he is mortally tired and passes away of exhaustion. Oh dear…. Building The Wall, amazing as it is, must have had a large impact on the imperial budget. I cannot confirm whether or not it ever lead to financial collapse/difficulties.

(Robert is out walking now, whilst I am in a hotel in WuWei, so I have a bit of time for writing.)

Don't expect to spend the evening alone if you are invited to spend the night inside the home of a local.

We are both lying on the bed (Kang in Chinese) of a shop owner now. He kindly invited us to spend the night here. It’s quite late and the light was switched off by our host a while ago. In the room next to us they are having fun and playing a drinking game where two people say a number between one and five in quick sequence to beat each other (one beats two, two beats three etc. and five beats one I think).

Outside the pretty strong wind, that halted our walking after 23 km, has lessened. I just went outside and the night is clearer and brighter than I have ever seen it in China. No moon yet.

We have made good progress today, and are both enjoying the shoes our parents sent us. No new blisters which is good news.

We found short stretches of the Great Wall today and took pictures and noted the positions.

Well - time to go to sleep. We are both pretty tired after the walk…

After an early noodles breakfast we got a taxi to where I left The Wall, to the north of Yong Chang. The trip was partly off-road and at one point we were sure water would come flooding in the car doors, as the water level was really high outside, but it went well.

A fairly narrow path on the Northern side of the reservoir

We got to a large water reservoir and The Wall disappeared in front of us, into the water probably. We climbed the ridge to the north of the reservoir and followed a pretty narrow path eastwards. As we got closer to the other side, we saw motor boats cruising on the water. Another area had tourist attractions and a lot of Chinese people were enjoying their Sunday.

There were some tents, resembling the Tibetan Yurt tents that were part of a restaurant. We entered one, ordered food and slipped off our new shoes to relax. My parents sent size 45 and 45.5 shoes.  I’m using the bigger size and Jon is testing the others, as his shoes don’t have good cushioning in the heel. We waited close to an hour for the food, but the place was nice and we were resting anyway.

Then we started walking through a very narrow valley with high cliffs on each side. Our GPS lost satellite reception occasionally, as there wasn’t much sky to see at times. We saw a lot of people camping by a river for the day. It is the first time we have seen what Chinese do for recreation. Soon, a lot of cars were passing us as they drove home. Several cars stopped to ask if we wanted a lift, but we kindly had to refuse their offers. At times it can be difficult to explain why we want to continue walking along the road instead of getting a lift.

At the end of the day we had walked 25 km.  Two of them don’t count - where I was backtracking The Wall. We are now at a two star hotel with nice and helpful stewardesses and warm water in the taps. On the down side, the toilet either doesn’t fill up with water, or leaks, there are no towels here and outside there is a factory spewing out smoke.  But who cares - we have warm water and are ready for tomorrow!

I went by an Internet Café this evening and saw that the Daily Quote is missing. As soon as we get to Wuwei, we’ll get it up and running again. Speaking of quotes, if you have any inspiring quotes, please send them to: thegreatwallker@gmail.com and I’ll include them. Thanks!

Thanks also to my mother who has just finished going through this entire blog checking and correcting my English!

Today has been all about transport. We got the bus to Wuwei to find a hotel that would store our extra baggage while we walk the stretch Yong Chang-Wuwei. The three hour trip was very pleasant. For once, the driver drove safely and kept to below 100 km/h or 55 mph on the speedometer, but by our judgement the small bus went at about 20 km/h less.

Jon did a great job and after five attempts found a hotel that had a storage service and seemed trustworthy.

We had dinner just down the road from the hotel, and were served what I think was the best Gong Bao Ji Ding course ever. This is Jon’s favourite chinese meal and I’m slowly catching on.

Then we took a bus back to Yong Chang. It was close to six o’clock by the time we got here. Rather than spending the late hours of the day looking for a  taxi and finding our last walking position, we had another good meal here and will set off again tomorrow.

After dinner, I went to an Internet Café and had two nice surprises. First, they have a lot of cool games on the PC’s here. I tested Counter Strike, but later - perhaps in Wuwei - I’m going to see if they have Command and Conquer which is a big time favourite. Perhaps I can hook up with a gaming mate in Norway

The other surprise was that two guys came over and introduced themselves and said they wanted to be friends. At this time it was getting late, so I told them we would be on our way tomorrow morning. I showed them the Chinese version of this site and had a talk with them. Their English was better than normal, so we managed to keep a conversation going in Chinenglish. Probably they speak English when they are playing online games.

Mental note: Visit Internet Café if I get desparately lonely after Jon has left China…

Brother Jon

On the return leg on the bus, from WuWei, back to YongChang, I sat next to a retired “security guard”/national service man. He said he was familiar with the area north of YongChang where we will be walking tomorrow. What was most interesting was that he had met an elderly man in the area. The old man mentioned a legend about Roman soldiers passing by here in times gone by. Credible? Don’t know.

On further investigation, this Wikipedia link sheds more light on the supposed Roman connection:

Just a quick note to say Jon and I have been in Zhangye today too. Tomorrow we head off to continue walking the Great Wall. The plan is to go to Wuwei to deposit a small rucksack, which we will not be carrying, to an hotel there, and then go back to Yong Chang to restart the walking at our last finishing point.

Today we have eaten well several times. I have finally got the workflow sorted out for organising the pictures I’m taking. I take backups on a small hard disc and just hope it will survive the trip. I plan to buy another hard disc in Wuwei and make a safety copy that Jon will take back to the UK. Another option is an online backup, but it would probably take many days to upload all the pictures.

It has been really good to spend some days in Zhangye, which is a very nice place. Tonight Jon and I met Kate and Daniel who work for the Peace Corps here in Zhangye. They have been English teachers for two and three years. They are the first Westerners we have spoken to since we left Jiayuguan. It was fun to talk about travelling, China and the town. We were sitting in the park in town and above us were two fantastic home made kites that must have been a hundred metres long. They looked like this kite.

I’ve added some pictures in the recent posts now.

Yesterday’s report:

Blues skies when I woke up the day after

It rained for 2-3 hours during the night and the wind was pretty strong for the first hour. Luckily, I had time to set the tent up using all six tent plugs with rocks on top of them. After putting some plugs of the softer kind in my ears, I got some sleep. The MSR Hubba HP tent did well in the wind and now I know that as long as it is secured properly, it can take a beating.

Mission for the day: Get as far as possible along The Wall, but have enough time to get back to Zhangye, via my brother in Yong Chang, to have a nice long talk to my girlfriend.

I am excited to see what my little toe looks like when it has shed it's skin

Walking the Great Wall is a breeze when the terrain is so beautiful and The Wall is in such good shape as it was on this stretch. Many places, the battlement (brystvern) was still intact which gave an extra feeling of the defensive purpose of The Wall. After about 10 km, I got to an orchard and sat down for a rest. I took off my shoes and what remains of the socks, to discover that the first batch of blisters are now starting to fall off, quite literally.

Later in the day, I got to a small village with a shop and bought Ice Tea, water and ate a noodles meal. Thinking that it was about time to get to Yong Chang, I asked the locals about the quickest way to get there.  They pointed straight over some mountains in front of me. I went on walking and saw a truck driving on a dirt road in the distance. Getting closer, I saw three men who were about to get into a very nice 4-wheel drive Mitsubishi car. I made a quick escape from where I was and walked faster, and just got to them before they set off. It turned out that they were going back to Yong Chang and they offered to drive me there - great luck  

The road was terrible for the first ten km. I quickly understood that we wouldn’t have been able to get a taxi back to the place in Yong Chang. After a quick shower, Jon helped me get on the right bus to Zhangye. Two hours and a hazardous bus ride later, I was here. Enough time for a quick evening meal and a long talk with my girlfriend. Highlight of the week  

And the added bonus: The parcel has arrived!!! Many thanks to my parents for sending it, and thanks to Odd at Løplabbet in Oslo for the extra socks that will come in handy the next couple of thousand kilometres.

Jon decided to come to Zhangye too and arrived a few hours ago.

Today and tomorrow: Rest days in Zhangye to fix things on the web site, rest, wash all clothes and eat loads of good food. We have been eating a bit too many noodles and biscuits lately, so it’s time to fatten ourselves up. Thanks for the chocolates mum and dad - they will come in handy.

Brother Jon

The reason I decided not to stay in YongChang (means “Forever prosperous”), but to return to ZhangYe was simply that people were unpleasant! Their attitude towards foreigners seems endemic. After being outside walking around town for a while it a relief to return to the hotel. Even from a 30 or 40 metre distance, the locals felt they had an obligation to literally shout out insulting words. (”Laowai“, “he is ugly”, “he is too tall”). If this happens several times a minute, it gets on one’s nerves. One man sat peacefully eating his noodles alone. When he saw me, 30  metres away, he shouted “laowai“. Another guy spat in my direction as he walked past, no doubt about it. I was dumbfounded, otherwise I do not know what I would have done to him. When I walked into an internet bar, a female employee said in earnest to her colleague by the till, “higher price”. I let it pass. The next day when I came, even though she knew I understand a fair bit of Chinese, she repeated “higher price”. What can one do? I told her off and walked out.

Sorry guys, your town will be “forever poor”, and I have seldom seen the likes of such collective  behaviour.

Don’t get me wrong. YongChang is an exception. Most small places have a good or acceptable attitude towards foreigners.

Although yesterday’s camp site was great, it didn’t help much when it came to a good night’s sleep. Jon slept only the last hour before we got up and I slept a little bit more.

With very little water and even less food, we headed down the valley we entered yesterday. It took about two hours before we found houses and a shop. At the shop, Jon decided to head for Yong Chang which is the next yellow marker on the Great Wall Route page.

The shop had internet connection, so we were able to check mail and this web site quickly . Many thanks for the messages you keep posting!

Jon and I decided to speak at 18.00 hours and I headed back to The Great Wall. The Wall continued down the valley, but there were scars in the earth from flood water, probably from the snow melting in the mountains . In some places, sections of The Wall were missing completely and I made sure to stay away from the parts of The Wall that were too close to the edge.

It is sad to see the Ming Dynasty Wall slowly crumbling because of this erosion and there seems to be little one can do to stop it. Some places, trenches have been set up to lead the water in a certain direction and other  places they have taken The Wall into consideration. It is difficult to protect a structure made mainly from soil and sand, from the forces of nature.

The sky started turning dark behind me, just as it did two days ago. I went on walking, half waiting for the first drop of rain, half looking for a good tent site, and half looking for a suitable cave in the wall. (I like halves..)

As I got further down the valley, I saw a few houses and thought I would either go there and ask for a place to spend the night, or pitch the tent in pretty windy conditions. I went for the last option in order to get more experience with the tent.

Have just spoken to Jon who shared some useful information about the mountains to the North of Yong Chang on the stretch tomorrow. He had to wait for two hours for the local bus to town.

Walked 24 km today, and 4 of them were ‘Off Wall’ to get water and food earlier today.

First: Congratulations to Norway on winning the Eurovision Song Contest yesterday and for the National day today!

After walking for a couple of hours, the Great Wall continued straight through a hilly area, whilst the road that has followed The Wall veered off to the closest valley to the south. The Wall followed the contours of the hills and the ground was loose dry soil with some vegetation here and there.

Using my walking sticks I felt fairly comfortable, even though some places were pretty steep. Jon decided to follow a valley to the other side, so we switched our mobile phones on to be able to stay in touch.

These crazy Chinese people - the Great Wall soon followed ridges that I felt uncomfortable walking along. Some places, the remains of The Wall were very eroded and looked ready to fall over. Some places they already had.

I spotted Jon in the valley as I got closer to the other side of the hilly section. I was walking along The Wall but came to an area where it followed a ridge on a steep hillside. The drop was probably about 40 metres and it was so steep that when I stood at the top, I couldn’t see the side of the slope underneath me. I called Jon and asked for his assessment on the remaining path of The Wall. He said that if I managed to walk (or climb) the next 20 metres then the rest should be fine. That sounded fair enough, but then he added: “Looks like there has been an earth slide (Jordras) there.

That was enough to make up my mind and I walked around.

This was a very nice lesson to learn early on. Jon and I spoke about it and the conclusions are as follows:
- We are Walking the Great Wall, not Climbing it.
- Because the exposure to potential danger is going to last for a whole year, the only sensible thing is to have a very low risk profile.
- Some places, it will be hard to know whether a stretch has any elements of danger before we are there, and this can be very time consuming in the long run. Haven’t found an answer to this one yet.

Anyway - we both got to the other side and walked on. Soon we were at 2.650 metres above sea level in the same type of beautiful terrain as yesterday.

We have pitched our tents and shared the rest of our biscuits, a sausage and hot chocolate powder. We have some water left and hope to find a place to stock up again tomorrow, preferably in the morning.

The air is crisp and clean and getting colder. This is our best camp site so far!

We woke to rain would you believe it… the place where we were this morning it rained only three times during the whole of last year . So far on our trip, Jon and I have have had rain just as many times. Anyway - we had a good breakfast and set off a little later than usual. A little footnote about the breakfast: Just before our food was served, four trailer drivers came in. In the dining room they started washing themselves, taking off their shirts and washing everything above the waist. Snorting, brushing their teeth etc. Not a very apetizing sight…

Jon heard yesterday that there was “Cao yuan” which means grassland outside of Shandan and that is where we headed today. A beautiful landscape with gentle hills covered mostly with grass, with snow capped mountains. Todays walk should be among the top ten stretches along the Great Wall.

We were at about 2.150 metres above sea level and lost for words, just taking in the beauty of the 360 degree view.

After a couple of hours walking we saw dark clouds behind us heading our way. As they got closer we heard thunder, so we found ourselves a couple of Great Wall caves and spent one and a half hours there. Most of the bad weather went west for us, but there was some rain.

Because of the above, plus the late start, we only got 17 km further today. The weather is supposed to be better tomorrow and I can’t wait to see more of the Great Wall and landscape.

Heia GP Alexander!!!