The Great Wall’ker

Although I am up on a hill close to a Great Wall watchtower I can both see and hear coal mines around me. As long as I stay away from the most poluted sites I guess this is good news as it means there are more people around. And people quite simply mean food and water.

After a few kilometres along a road I took off in the north easterly direction. Walking the Great Wall was hard as it was located in a large mining complex! They had dug steep walls so I had to walk through the complex before getting to undisturbed nature and Great Wall.

I started coughing after a while, and the cough became so strong that I started vomiting too. Threw up about half of my breakfast. Not very comfortable, but at least I got rid of the cough in the end.

Before I got to the next valley, I had a really hard time finding a safe way down. I followed a small valley, but it suddenly had a five metre drop. There were a few tracks on one side, but there was snow and ice there. I was not particularly tempted as I do not have studs for my boots and the track was narrow, clinging to a steep hillside.

So I went for the other side. Just as narrow on a steep hillside with a twenty metre drop, but no snow and ice. When I got half way up, I saw several ‘killer’ thorn bushes. Killer because they were about my height and the thorns are sharp and very long. In fact the whole bush is made entirely of thorns, so each and every sturdy branch ends up as a thorn. Anyway - that meant I had to walk even closer to the edge.

As I am doing this alone and during winter time, I will have to assess these situations more carefully. The problem is that walking back may not be a better solution as it takes time and energy and the alternate route may be just as risky.

Then I looked eastwards and saw what looked like a large Great Wall about five kilometres to the east! I asked a gang of about ten truck drivers having a break if it was the Great Wall but they said it wasn’t and meant I am on the right track. I am following a series of watchtowers, and see remains of Wall where there is no earth erosion. But The Wall is not very high. The one I (think) I saw in the distance was a lot grander. With the route I am following now I might link up with it tomorrow. I also wonder if it is a Ming Dynasty Great Wall or not.

Well - it is pretty cold on this hillside, so it’s time to send this report and then get all of my body inside the sleeping bag.

15 kilometres today

I’ve been asked by a few friends where they can send Christmas cards. A couple of letters sent to me previously have been lost. This is frustrating both for me and the sender. Therefore it is best to send them to my parents. Their address is Havnabakken 26, 0874 Oslo, Norway. Then they can pass them on to the next person from home that I meet up with.

Many thanks in advance! My Christmas cards will be on the blog this year. Anything else would be difficult I’m afraid.

The walk today was along what can only be called ‘Coal Alley’. Almost everywhere I looked it was black. The area from Shenmu to Datong is very rich in coal, I have been told. The traffic to transport it is almost constant both on road and rail. Tomorrow I head in a north easterly direction away from the coal alley. Looking forward to it. Will soon go out to send the GPS point. I just hope it will work, because I’m in a pretty steep valley and the device needs as much sky as possible.

I still have the cold. A cough and runny nose. It has lasted for a while, so hopefully it will improve soon.

19 kilometres today

I planned to walk on today, but after yesterday’s festivitas, I took some time for recouperation and drinking a lot of Ice Tea…

Later on I bought chocolate biscuits and sweets for the next leg, filled up the cell phone with more money, bought a memory card and did other small chores.

Today I had a great day. Some time ago, I met Mr Liu Yanfei, his wife and charming daughter of 4 on the train from Beijing to Datong. He invited me to see his school when I came to Shenmu.

Mr Liu and his friend picked me up in the morning and we drove to the school. It lies just a little west of Shenmu and has more than 150 students. The students are deaf and use sign language to communicate. They live at the school.

I got to see the dormitories, kitchen, gymnasium, classrooms and most important - to meet the students. They are between 6 and 16 years old. Seeing a foreigner raised a couple of eyebrows here and there. The students seemed very happy and were eating a good meal when I met them. The dormitories were nice and warm, and they even had a place to surf the internet. (I would have swapped any cold night in my tent with these students!)

I was told that music and dance are important activities at the school as the sudents can feel the music and rhythms and move to them. When meeting the students, I learnt how to say Ni hao, and my name in the sign language. This seemed to amuse the students.

After this, I met the teachers of the school. I told them about the project I am currently undertaking. Luckily I managed to speak mostly in Chinese, and Mr Liu’s friend translated the rest. I was asked about the differences in China now, compared to 1998 when I was last here.

They are easy to see, I answered, and thought first of the school we were sitting at. Also the infrastructure in form of roads, electricity, mobile phone coverage and internet has greatly improved.  Then I went on by taking my clothes off, to show that many of the goods we use in the west are now produced in China. I stopped before things became too indecent though.

Thank you very much Mr Liu for showing me the school for the deaf in Shenmu! and whilst I am thanking you, I would also like to say thank you   for the rest of the day

We had a great dinner at a posh hotel that used to be frequented by one of China’s previous Foremen. Then we went to the Blade Monastery - Erlangshan - that overlooks the town. This monastery is built on the knife-like cliff to the west of the town. The oldest parts are from the Ming Dynasty!

After that, we had another tasty meal before we ended the evening at a KTV / Kareoke bar. This was a first time experience for me, and really great fun. It was almost like having your own disco.

The only thing I have omitted from this report is the amount of wine and other drinks we had. I was introduced to the dice and drinking game men play at meals and parties and had the odds heavily against me. Also, it was popular to do the bottoms up routine, and since many toasts were directed towards me as the guest, I had the odds against me there too!

Lately the Chinese version of this site has become more and more popular. If the trend continues it will soon be read by more people every day than the English one. Thank you to all the Chinese people who have read about the walk and also contributed with comments and advice. I have not answered any questions, but plan to do so the next time I get to Datong.

A big big thank you to Helen in Yulin for translating the blog entries to Chinese, adding pictures and promoting the site for the Chinese audience!

Also a big thanks to Sue - a Chinese friend who lives in Denmark now. She runs a blog on www.sina.com about walking the Great Wall. Many thanks Sue! I hope we can meet in Liaoning some time.

Back here in Shenmu I took it easy this morning, and then walked 16 kilometres northwards. I saw very little of the Great Wall but many watchtowers. On the way back to Shenmu I learned that Chinese don’t like to be touched on their shoulders. I did this as a joke to a guy in front of me, but that was not appreciated. In the west, touching a person’s shoulder is a pretty neutral thing to do. So I hope some of the Chinese readers can explain why it is not accepted in China?

On the train from Beijing to Datong a while ago I met the headmaster of a school for the deaf. We are going to meet tomorrow and he wants to show me the school. I am really looking forward to it and will take the day off walking. Will wash clothes too so that I am ready for the next leg of the walk.

16 kilometres today

The wind was really strong today. I got plenty of sand in my eyes today, even though I used my sunglasses to protect them.  Not very comfortable while wearing contact lenses.

There were lots of beacon towers along the route, but the actual Great Wall was harder to find. In the desert west of Shenmu I saw remains of it.

Before I reached Shenmu and started heading for the Northern part of town, I walked past something that lifted my heart.
A re-cycling station for beer bottles, glass and cardboard. I walked straight on to the area and took pictures. Although I have seen people collecting used bottles before, I have not until today seen what happens with them. Most Chinese still have a pretty relaxed attitude towards throwing things by the wayside.  I hope this will change over the next years - and it probably will. On my way out I was closely escorted by two dogs. One of them got so close that I smacked it across the back with my walking stick.

When I got to the northern border of the town, I decided to go back to the hotel and treat myself to a good meal, wash clothes and get rid of the sand in my eyes.

12 kilometres today

Thursday the 3rd

It was indeed a cold night, and the inner walls of the tent were icy this morning. I had kept the Platypus drinking system inside the sleeping bag to keep it from freezing and that made the night all the more colder. But the sleeping bag did a good job. It is very spacious which makes for comfortable sleeping. One thing I cannot understand is why the producers of four season sleeping bags don’t take the consequence of sub zero use?

Under these conditions, humidity from the air that is breathed out from the user will end up on the outside of the sleeping bag as icy drops of liquid. Also, chances are high the ice will form by the feet because the bottom part of the bag comes in contact with the inner tent. Why don’t they make these two relatively small areas more resilient to humidity or ice from the outside?

This is most definitely the season for slaughtering pigs! I walked past several families at work and was twice offered to eat with them. That would have been fun, but I wanted to get to Shenmu today so kindly had to refuse.

Walking down a steep valley I had to make a detour as the track I was following abruptly stopped at a water reservoir. I was only half a kilometre from the bottom of the valley but had no chance to get down the cliff.

I wonder when this grindstone was used last.

Before leaving, I memorized where I should go up the other side to get close to the track of the Great Wall. When I finally got down I came across two old and abandoned farm houses. The had a great feel about them and I spent quite some time walking around imagining what life must have been like there, and taking pictures. When I started walking on I noticed that there were no roads, or even dirt roads leading to the houses. This added to the lonely feel of this beautiful place.

I managed to find the right place to go on walking along the Great Wall and had a hard ascent but the cooler weather made this a lot easier.

When I got to the top I could see the Blade Monastery of Shenmu to my right and the endless line of trailers, driving along the road far down below me. I am staying at the same hotel where the Grandson of the people I stayed with last night, works. With any luck I will get to meet him and perhaps the girlfriend who he has been together with for three days, tomorrow.

22 kilometres today

All five of us fit comfortably on the Kang of the house. We got up at about eight o’clock. I was ready for an early start, but was offered breakfast with the family. I thanked them, not realising that I would be slightly delayed by a few hours.

The grandfather writing the names of the villages I would pass.

The Grandfather of the house told me about an old dirt road I could follow that went right along the Great Wall. I took pictures of the family, that I will send to the grandson on QQ. Every youngster in China with respect for him or herself has a QQ account - the equivalent of Skype or MSN in most other places.

Many thanks for your great hospitality! I hope the slaughtering went well.

I walked the Great Wall following the dirt road. The terrain was hilly and following the Great Wall at close quarters would have been practically impossible. The wall was missing about two thirds of the way. It was mostly to be found on unreachable ‘islands’ of land that had not succumbed to earth erosion.

As the day went on, I walked away from the dirt raod to get closer to the Great Wall. This was fine, but a kilometre later I was angry at myself for doing it. I ended up using a lot of time and effort to find a way through the maze of small valleys.

Happy send off!

I was hoping to repeat the tactic of a few days ago and find a small guesthouse at a road I saw on my GPS. When I got there however, it turned out to be very small. Only one vehicle passed during short hour I waited, and it went the wrong way. I walked on a few hundred metres and found a nice spot high up on a hill. The light from the full moon made it easy to set up the tent. Because of the clear skies, I knew I was in for a cold night…

16 kilometres today

I’m lying on the Kang (warmed up bed) of an older couple now. They run the only shop in the village. Have not been able to send off a point for the Great Wall Route for today, but will tomorrow morning.

It has been hard walking today. Trying to figure out a way through the maze of small valleys. Many of them were not deeper than 4-5 metres, but that’s more than enough if you can’t find a safe way down or up the other side.

The sleeping bag worked well tonight, but because it was about zero degrees when I woke, and no wind through the night, the inner tent was wet so the foot end of the sleeping bag was also slightly wet. I opened the tent doors and managed to dry the tent a bit before starting the walk.

Before it got dark I got down to a valley and asked my way to a small shop were I am now. The son and grandson are visiting from Shenmu. The grandson can speak some English which meant that with English and Chinese we managed to communicate pretty well. He told me that today only 25 people live here, while ten years ago this was a busy place. Things change quickly in China. He works as a chef at a hotel in Shenmu and likes to surf the net till three in the morning and play Counter Strike.

After speaking to the people in the shop for a while, they offered me to spend the night here which was very nice of them. Tomorrow morning I can get an early start and stock up on goods from the shop. That’s unless I want to stay and watch them slaughter the big pigs they are slaughtering tomorrow…

22 kilometres today