The Great Wall’ker

With good help from my Chinese friend living in Denmark, it looks like things are starting to fall into place with regards to a Chinese website. Also with help from the Chinese wife of a Norwegian friend. This has been the plan all the time, but it has taken longer than anticipated. It’s going to be fun to have a website that the people I meet can read and, if they are particularly interested, can continue to read as I walk the Great Wall further Eastwards.

I will be returning to Zhongwei tomorrow morning. Andreas of the Great Wall Forum is arriving in Inner Mongolia in less than a week. He will bring with him a package from Norway with a new camera and shoes, a new compass and other items that will make my life a little easier in China. So I will be taking a little break from the Ningxia Great Wall and travel together with Andreas for some days in Inner Mongolia. Can’t wait   

Mini Neverland by the Yellow river

A friend called me today. He got married in Turkey the day before. Congratulations John!!! Enjoy your Honeymoon!

John talked about the big day and towards the end he said: “By the way - Michael Jackson is dead”. Wow - somehow I didn’t think that he was ever going to die!! So sad.

I went on walking along the road parallel to the Yellow River thinking about Michael Jackson. Then I saw a building on the banks of the Yellow River. Looks like a miniature Neverland…

Mini Neverland by the Yellow river

- - -

At seven o’clock I woke up because it was boiling hot inside the tent. There was not a cloud in the sky, so I knew it would be a warm day. I got up and started walking to get as far as possible before it got too hot.

There wasn’t much to take my attention from the road and the walking. Although there was a nice view of the desert, I had left the camera with the 5x zoom lens in Jingtai to save some weight.

As it got close to twelve o’clock, I started looking for a suitable place to have a siesta, but found nothing. So I carried on walking. When I got close to the Yellow River I saw some spruce trees like the ones we have in Norway. It was perfect to lie below them and the slight wind helped cool me down. Also, it made me feel a little closer to home. I miss the Norwegian forests and trees.

When I got to Shapotou after more than 30 kilometres in the heat, I decided enough was enough. From Shapotou place, I will starting walking in a north eastern direction to find the Great Wall again. I got a lift to Zhongwei (not Zhongning - the map has been updated) and left my sleeping bag, mattress and tent there. Then I took a three hour ride to Jingtai to collect the laptop and other things which I had left there.

Today has been strange, because it seems that two of ten passing trucks have given a friendly honk, and the driver has waved like mad or given the thumbs up. When I have been walking, I’ve heard the word ‘from Norway’ and ‘Walking the Great Wall’ mentioned, before saying anything. So it seems the word gets around pretty quickly. It was fun that people along the road knew what I was doing and that I am doing it to raise money for cancer research. Usually I have to tell the story in every place I come, but today others have been doing that job.

There was a light drizzle of rain this morning. I thought that would make for good walking, so I packed the tent. Just as that was done, it started to rain quite heavily. I got out the umbrella and managed to keep myself and the rucksack dry. After quarter of an hour it eased off and I started walking again.

Took a little break at ten to get washed and sleep for two hours. It has been cloudy all day and the temperture has been comfortable. I hope it stays this way.

It was hard to find a decent camp site this evening. I like to stay out of sight of people and preferably get there without being noticed. There is a thin strip of land with vegetation along the road. The rest is desert. To the north, I have the gas pipe line and the railway line. To the south is the road I’m walking and the bigger road they are constructing now.

I got up and started packing the tent at half past seven. As I was packing I saw something large moving in the distance. It was a herd of camels slowly moving towards me. I thought it was a wild herd and hid behind a sand dune and got out the camera. Then I heard someone riding a motorbike close by.  It turned out to be the shepherd of the camels. 40 adults and 20 baby camels. It was a nice start to the day.

I started walking after talking a little to the shepherd and walked for two hours at a fairly high pace. It was cool and the sun hid behind the clouds for the most part. After about 12 kilometres I got to a trucker station by the road and thought to try my luck for a meal and then sleep.

Inside, there were a few truckers. I ordered a meal and told them about what I was doing. When we started looking at the province map of Gansu it turned out I am only a few kilometres from Ningxia. That feels great! The Ming Dynasty Great Wall goes through six provinces and I will be finished with the first today!

The truck drivers seemed to like what I was doing and that I was doing it for cancer research. Before they left, they said they had paid for my food and stay here, as a gift. I was surprised and very grateful for that.

This is written at the trucker place. Will get up soon, have a quick wash before eating some more and then move on until it gets dark.

—

Written in the tent: Well wouldn’t you know. The nice guy that stopped his car last night and gave me fruit, was the owner of the place I stayed today! He was dressed like he was going to a party with an orange short sleeved shirt that was open, a black tie and some dark, small and round John Lennon glasses. He was full of beans and lit off fireworks when I left the place. Always fun with original people and it was fun to meet him again.

I walked another 15 kilometres after the break. It started blowing fairly hard and there were a few drops of rain now and again. It has cleared up now. 26 kilometres today and 22 yesterday. Taking a break and sleeping during the hottest hours today has worked a treat. Will try the same tomorrow if things fall into place.

Yesterday evening, I wanted to examine the route to Zhongwei. Then I realized that all Google.com sites were blocked. How convenient. Google Earth - my route planning tool was down -  Google maps and Google mail. Luckily I have a province map and had looked at the route earlier. It will take 4-5 days to get to Zhongwei.  There are small towns about 20 kilometres apart the whole way.

At about two o’clock it got very hot and I took a break under some trees that were amongst the last I expect to see for a while. I rested, drank and ate and then went on until about four o’clock. It was still way too warm and I started sweating a lot from a slow walk. When I eventually got to a shop I decided to stay there for a while.

I bought some more Ice tea and noodles.The owner of the place and I started to talk and I explained what I was doing. People are starting to say that they think my pronunciation is good now. Don’t know if it is out of pity, or because they mean it. I thank them and say the pronunciation may be good, but my understanding of Chinese is still below the level of a novice. Then I explain by saying that the word Wife can have five different names, while I know only a couple of them. Well I know more now, since I used the word as an example, but you get the point.
Anyway - I try to ask my Chinese friends that I meet along the walk, for one or two new words that are helpful and hopefully by the end of the year I will manage better. It also helps a lot to have installed a dictionary on my htc telephone. It weighs nothing and is a true help both from English to Chinese and vice versa using Pinyin. (This is the way of describing pronunciation of Chinese charracters using the Roman alphabet.)  Only snag is that I have not sorted Chinese characters on the phone, so have to try and get that sorted.

I expect the next 7-8 weeks to be as hot or hotter than today. On the rest of this stretch, I will try to split the day into two cooler walking sessions and then eat and sleep from about 2 o’clock till 6. I see no point in sweating heavily at mid-day.

Towards the end of the day, I thought I’d try my luck at a small garage to get the rubber tips of my walking sticks renewed. After two months walking, the ones I brought have almost no rubber left. The guy went over to a wheel and got out a small saw cutting a piece of rubber. Then he filed them to a round shape and I had two new rubber tips on the walking sticks. I only tested them for a few km, but they seem to do the job well!

This evening I walked till about nine, when it got dark, and set up the tent in semi darkness, but am used to it now, so no problem.

Lying in my underpants in the tent now, looking at the thinnest crest of the moon setting and the big dipper pointing at the Northen star. Time to eat some left overs from yesterday and drink an Ice tea. I want to set off early tomorrow.

A nice guy stopped his car on the road and offered to host me in his home, but I graciously said ‘no’, since I wanted to walk on. He lives in the town I pass tomorrow and I said I would pop by his restaurant. That is if I find it. All I know is it is on the right hand side. Hope the place isn’t too big…

The stay in Jingtai has been a little longer than planned, but I’m happy I have taken the time to enjoy life a bit. In the post below, you can see some pictures from the Yellow River. The most important thing I have done in Jingtai, apart from resting and eating enough, is arranging the delivery of a parcel from Norway. Many thanks to my parents for getting all the things together, and many thanks to Andreas for bringing them to China!!

The weather forecast for the next few days looks favourable. Mostly cloudy and some showers now and again to keep me cool. Great   

Just to clarify things: The next few days I will be walking along a road to get to Zhongwei and this is the reason: the eastern side of the Yellow River is full of very mountainous terrain and there are few places to get water. No-one has walked this stretch before and I am in no hurry to break a record (or perhaps a leg) doing this stretch. Therefore, I will do what others walking the Great Wall have done before, and follow the road.

Unfortunately I can’t get Google maps, mail or Google Earth to work now, so therefore I can’t make a fancy graphical chart showing you what I wrote above.

I decided to do something completely different today, and went to the Yellow River stone forest of Gansu. It was good fun to do something completely different. Am really tired now, so will update this tomorrow with some pictures of the events from today.

Dipping my feet in the Yellow river. The colour comes from the loess in the ground. About 10 to 20 percent of the volume is in fact mud.

Find yourself 14-15 sheep, slaughter them without damaging their skins, and tie the ends with rope. A little wooden frame, and hey presto you have yourself a sheepskin raft!

I’ve spent the day at the virtual office. With a laptop and internet connection, there is more than enough to do. Have had contact with sponsors, media and my parents (about another, and hopefully, last parcel to be sent to me). I want to try to get as much as possible done before starting to walk again.

Have had some really good meals lately which feels good, since the meals when on the road are not exactly fattening…

Today I started on the detour to bring me to Zhongwei in the Ningxia province. As mentioned yesterday, the Great Wall probably continues on the eastern side of the Yellow river in a northerly direction, but this area is so mountainous and remote that I don’t see it fitting to be the first to attempt walking the stretch on this long hike. The walk will now continue on roads until I pick up the Great Wall again.

Today was good and the average speed was faster than when walking the Great Wall in hilly terrain. I was pretty exhausted after yesterday, so took it slightly easy today with ‘only’ 19 kilometres. I managed to follow small dirt roads that had virtually no traffic on them for a fairly large portion of the day, but soon I will have little choice than to follow the main road leading to Ningxia province.

I might take tomorrow ‘off’ to get things sorted on this page + pictures, make orders for some winter equipment, send pictures to people Jon and I have met along The Wall and so forth. Even though this project is primarily about walking the Great Wall, there is quite a lot of administration. And it feels good to have those things out of the way to enjoy the walking more. I might also take time to visit the Yellow River Stone Forest of Gansu.

I was excited from the very start today, knowing that I would end up where the Great Wall meets the Yellow River. It felt warmer than yesterday, and from the very beginning I was sweating a lot. Luckily though I am getting used to the heat. Even though I am almost constantly damp with sweat, it is not that uncomfortable any longer.

The first part was really hilly. Some places there was a drop of a hundred metres on one edge. Some places The Wall was surprisingly wide. They are building some gigantic electricity towers close to the Great Wall and on one section, they had built a dirt road right next to The Wall. I followed the Great Wall route.  Comparing the distance I walked with the actual road, it became obvious that in sections I was walking about double the length of the road.

The Great Wall meets the Yellow River (And so does Robert)

Then came the long descent towards the Yellow River. I kept my eyes open and saw the wide river in the distance. The Yellow River has dug itself quite far down, so it wasn’t until I got really close, that I could get a good view. Wow - the Great Wall is Great, and the Yellow River is impressive. I soon started imagining what it would be like to kayak down the river. The current was pretty strong. Looking over to the other shore, I saw a vertical cliff that must have been about 150 metres high.

It was fantastic to look down at the mighty river. Nearly all the rivers I have seen so far have been almost dry. The Yellow River will definitely not dry up any time soon. I was happy to have reached it. This is the most southern point of my entire Great Wall hike and it was fun to be at this point the day before the sun is at it’s highest point at noon, meaning that the northern hemisphere is closest to the sun.

I looked for evidence of the Great Wall on the other side of the Yellow River, but found none where I was standing, apart from what might have been three beacon towers. Then I walked southwards and found what might be a Great Wall Beacon tower built of stone. I looked across the Yellow River at this point and to my surprise found what could have been the Great Wall sneaking it’s way up on the other side! You can read more about the findings at the Great Wall Forum.

I found no evidence of any wall going northwards on the western side of the Yellow River, so I did as planned: I bid the Great Wall a temporary farewell and will walk along small and large roads to get to the point where it crosses back on the western or northern side of the Yellow River.

As I started following a dry riverbed in the right direction, it started to drizzle. It was nice to get a little cold water on my body. The sides of the mountains on either side got steeper and higher.  It felt strange and a little depressing being in such a claustrophobic place after having followed the Great Wall along mountain tops and ridges for so long. The river bed started bending off to the south and west instead of north, so in the end I left it and went off-river-bed, climbing over a small mountain to the north.

22 km today.

Today’s walk was really good and varied. It started in the flat landscape north of Jingtai. Since it rained most of the night, the top inch of the earth became very slippery in some places.  The problem was that it was difficult to identify these places before it was too late. Thanks to the walking sticks it went OK though.

Later, I approached some small mountains and started climbing them to follow the trail of the Great Wall. Wow - it felt great to get ‘up there’ in the hills! Suddenly I had a greater perspective of the landscape around me. The Great Wall followed the ridges along the mountain sides.  It was almost completely erected with stone walls on each side and rammed earth in the middle. They had used the landscape to their advantage in some stretches so that they didn’t need a wall. It felt exciting to know that I was closing quickly in on the Yellow River.

At a couple of places it got a bit dangerous to climb, but just taking things slowly meant that I felt safe, although it was pretty steep. Now and again there was rock sticking up from the ground which made me think of the Norwegian Mountains in Jotunheimen. I like to have rock under my feet. Makes me feel safe!

Observant readers will see that I am walking a little further to the south-east than the planned route (Green line). The Great Wall crosses the Yellow River close to here and continues in a north-easterly direction on the eastern shore of the Yellow River for about 80 kilometres. Unfortunately as you can see from the map, this is a very inhospitable mountainous area with few or no chances of finding water. Nobody has ever walked this stretch before. One would think that the Yellow River has plenty of water, and it does, but it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get to the Yellow River due to the earth erosion along it’s shores. So tomorrow, when I hit the Yellow River, I will backtrack towards Jingtai and follow tracks, small roads and whatever I can find, to start walking towards Zhongning which is the next yellow blob on the Great Wall Route.

If you want to have some fun, go to the Great Wall Route, and zoom in really close by pressing the + sign on the map. The images here are detailed and you can see the Great Wall rolling it’s way through the landscape!

After walking the Great Wall for 25 kilometres yesterday without eating anything, I have taken it easy in Jingtai today. Have refilled the Chinese phone card with enough money to last for a month, hopefully, and worked on pictures and the website. Have also had two good and large meals and washed more clothes, so things are ready for tomorrow. It is raining now, and has been for a few hours, so hopefully that will keep things cooler tomorrow.

Thanks for the talk earlier today Kelly - It’s good to have a conversation where I don’t have to say: Ting bu dong every second sentence   

Walked 25 km under the sun today without any food.

After the food feast yesterday evening, I woke up with an urge to go to the ‘toilet’ (There aren’t any in the desert of course). So I got out the small head lamp and found a suitable place. And then it was diarrhoea time…  

Don’t know if it was the food or the water, but when I got up this morning I had no desire to eat at all. I had half a litre of water and a litre of Ice Tea. I have been using a hydration bag to carry the water that I drink while walking. It is great and makes it easy to drink while on the move. But it needs to be cleaned now and again, and I have not cleaned mine for a long time…

Well - one and a half litres was not enough for 25 km, but towards the end of the day I, luckily, found a small shop. I sat down completely exhausted and just watched the shop owner and her three friends playing some sort of poker game. I was still sweating after sitting quite still for ten minutes.  I then looked around and purchased some water and an ice cream and sat down again.

The end point of today was only about 4 km away from Jin Tai, so I am back in town. I might spend the day here tomorrow to fill up on food and water.

I can really feel that I am alone now. Jon is gone. It’s good to have a PC in the room, and internet connection to communicate with friends and family.

Well - time to hit the sack. I’ve eaten a lot this evening, but am going to eat some more before sleeping.