The Great Wall’ker

There has been a really hot spell in Ningxia the last couple of days. This will last for some more days, but then the heat should drop to only about 30 C. (86 F)  I’m in Yinchuan working on the Chinese website now and will stay here until the heat drops.

I’m really hoping that this will be the last I see of  the intense heat this summer.

I started walking at about nine o’clock. The last days of walking along irrigation channels put me a bit too far West, so the first 3-4 kilometres I walked Westwards to get to the starting point of the suspected Great Wall in the area. I walked Westwards along a dirt road surrounded by farmland. Walking past several suspected beacon towers, without finding any evidence of them, made my heart drop a bit. But a few kilometres later, I found the Great Wall in pristine order. It was probably about six metres high and continued for a stretch of about a kilometre.

Trying to follow it’s track was difficult because there were buildings right beside it on one side and, in some places, fields with corn on the cob on the other side. I tried to walk through a house yard, but was effectively stopped by two very aggressive guard dogs. They were chained, but had a look in there eyes that said I wouldn’t have lasted very long had they not been chained.

After getting to the most Western point of the Great Wall in this section, I backtracked, walking in the streets of the small village, and stopped at a small shop to buy something to drink. Ice Tea as usual.

Heading Eastwards, the sun hit me right in the front. I notice very well how I heat up most when the sun is in front of me. From the sides or behind, it doesn’t hit as large an area of my body. Soon I was sweating intensely. I started asking villagers if they had seen any Ming Dynasty Great Wall and they confidently pointed in the direction I was walking.

After a while I hit the Great Wall again. It had shrubs on top of it and was not very evident some places. After walking for a while, it became higher, and there was no doubt - I could see the remains of beacon towers too. I followed it for approximately 8 kilometres before hitting the road on which I hoped to get a bus to Yinchuan.

After waiting for a while, I saw that this particular road was only trafficated by lorries and the occasional car and motorbike. Therefore I started walking to get to a larger road. Then I got lucky and a motorbike with two adults stopped.  The driver asked if I wanted a lift. Here in China I have seen up to three adults and two children on a motorbike, so three adults and a large rucksack was no problem at all. The helpful driver was going in the same direction as me, and dropped me off right in front of a bus that was going to Yinchuan. I was very grateful and offered to pay him for the ride, but he said he didn’t want any money. Many thanks to him. I was really tired when he picked me up and the extra walk would have zapped me a lot in the heat.

Many thanks to the members of the Great Wall Forum for feeding me with information on the probable route of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall in this area!! Andreas - I will write a summary with coordinates in the Forum tomorrow. I also plan to add some pictures from the day here.

Today started with the sun blasting on to the side of my little tent. It was very hot. I had a bad headache and wanted to sleep more after a bad night’s sleep. Right outside, I saw hundreds of mosquitos just waiting to give me a good morning kiss.

Still inside the tent, I was sweating heavily.  I then put on my clothes to get some protection from the mosquitos… Luckily there was a slight breeze outside.

I didn’t know it was going to be this hot so early, as the long term weather forecast had predicted overcast weather and about 30 C.

I started walking. The plan was to walk about 15 to 20 km and then take a bus to Yinchuan to let my knee rest. As I got closer to the end, I was tempted to go on walking one more day. I was close to a fairly large town and asked a taxi driver to drive me to a middle class hotel where I could eat, rest and wash my clothes.

She nodded and dropped me off at the first hotel we passed. The best and most expensive hotel in town! I was too tired and hot to change the hotel and after a little dealing was able to reduce the price of the room a bit.

In the reception, I met Ted from New York who is overseeing work at a large industrial site just outside of town. He has been here for fourteen months! We met a bit later and spent the evening together sharing travel stories, reflections on life in China and so forth together. Thanks for a really great evening Ted, and a delicious meal! It was good fun, and a nice change from the usual routine of being alone

This evening my brother, a friend from the UK, my girlfriend and parents have called. It’s good to be able to keep in touch even though I am on the other side of the world… My brother told me that there is a heat wave on it’s way. Temperatures are going to be really high for about 4-5 days. If this holds true, I will probably spend that time in Yinchuan to finish the first version of the Chinese website, and letting my left knee heal.

17 kilometres today.

PS - I saw another snake today…

It was raining lightly this morning. Because of the heat and humidity the previous night, I didn’t get that much sleep, so today I slept until about 8 o’clock. Started walking an hour later.

I forgot to write yesterday, that I had felt a pain behind my left knee. First I thought it was the old back injury from kayaking Norway that had re-surfaced (a nerve in the back is pinched causing pain in my left leg) but today I realized it had nothing to do with my back. Lucikly.

So I started feeling the back of the knee and felt the telltale signs of tendonitis. I don’t even know if one can get tendonitis in this spot. Anyway - it looks like I will have to figure out what this is. I’m hoping that since it came so quickly, it will disappear quickly too…

I bought some noodles at a shop today. I showed her a picture of a dead snake I found on the dirt road and asked if it was dangerous. It was green with reddish colourings closer to it’s head. She told me it wasn’t dangerous, but I should watch out for the black snakes, and all other colourations… Well - I didn’t feel like even leaving the shop!! A lot less to put up a tent in a field with semi long grass. (That’s where I am right now)

Then she gave me a good piece of advice to keep snakes away… Take off your shoes and walk around the tent barefoot. That way the snakes can smell you and will stay away. Well - that would lead to a certain snake bite to walk around barefoot… I decided against trying her advice.

I’m in the tent now with a headache and trying to stretch my left leg. I can hear the sounds of small creatures right outside the tent, bumping against the walls. Perhaps frogs? I hope they stay outside…

About 30 kilometres today. (The GPS is outside the tent and I’m not risking lots of mosquito bites to get it…)

I started at 7 o’clock this morning ready to get a full day of walking. The landscape is striking here with scattered beacon towers and Xixia tombs sticking out of the ground.

After walking Northwards a while, I went more Eastwards to find a large irrigation channel I saw on the map. By doing this I could keep off the roads. From one to three o’clock, I rested under the shade of some high trees. Even got some sleep there.

I have been following the channel most of the day. Toward the end, the air became thick with mosquitoes. I usually don’t camp where I can be seen by others, but with the hot and humid air plus the mosquitoes, and a long day’s walk, I set up the tent, semi-hidden from a small but fairly heavily trafficated dirt road on the other side of the channel.

I am really tired now. Luckily, the temperature has dropped enough so that I can soon slip into the sleeping bag. I hope tomorrow isn’t as hot as today…

36 kilometres today.

I started walking from San Guan Kou at about two o’clock. The first thing I noticed was that it was cooler than last time I was here.

If the temperature stays at about 30 C max, I’ll be happy. For me, 30 C is OK, whilst 35 C means that my body cannot cool down adequately.

I soon left the road going down in to the Ningxia valley and turned Northwards heading for two Xixia tombs in the distance.

Walking towards the tombs, I started thinking about how little is known about this Kingdom. It reminded me that we are all here on earth for a very limited time, so we should be grateful and make the most of it.

The tombs were fantastic. I took off my rucksack and walked around the Northern one, taking pictures. Then I heard thunder in the distance. Some frightening dark clouds were rolling slowly in from the North. I wanted to go on walking, but decided against it after considering it for five minutes.

To the North there was only open desert and I would have been the highest point in the terrain for the next hour of walking. A couple of lightning strikes in the mountains to the West were enough to convince me. I set up the tent just outside of the fenced-off area by the tombs. That should be close enough so that lightning strikes the tomb and not the tent. (Well - hopefully neither!)

It started raining and I dozed off in the tent. Only two hours later, the bad weather had passed. It’s good to be back on track and in the tent again

17 kilometres today.

Three reasons for a little celebration today:

• My stomach is finally getting better. I have never been this bad with diarrhoea before. Was completely emptied for energy. I am really looking forward to getting back to walking the Great Wall and plan to set off tomorrow.

• I have been in China for 4 months now!! (A little more in fact)

• My girlfriend bought her tickets for China which I am really excited about! When she arrives in mid September, we will not have seen each other for five and a half months. That’s a long time… I hope we recognize each other!!

Many thanks for supporting messages on the page while I have been ill.

Yesterday was terrible.

Instead of walking the Ningxia loop, I found myself running to and from the bathroom. I counted myself a very lucky man for being in a town and not out in the tent in the desert. I tried to drink a lot and ate a little rice.

My trousers have never hung as loose around me as they do now. I wonder how much will be left of me when I one day hopefully arrive at Dandong in Liaoning…

Things are a little better now. Going out to get something to eat.

My friend John sent me this a few days ago.

As you probably understand, he doesn’t have very high morals and therefore he is not my friend any longer… Well - the truth is he has a good sense of humour!!

PS - I set off to walk the Ningxia outer loop tomorrow. I hope to make some findings that members of the Great Wall Forum have pointed me towards.

San guan kou is the place I ended up yesterday. It is situated on the border between Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. it lies about 40 kilometres South West of Yinchuan which is the Capitol of Ningxia.

San guan kou means three passes, three gates or three points. It lies in the Southern part of the Helan mountain range that acts as a natural barrier from invaders from the West. To the West is the mighty and desolate Tengger desert. To the East is the fruitful Ningxia province and what was once home to the Xi Xia Kingdom.

Early in the 13th century, Genghis Khan led his horsemen on a campaign to destroy their civilisation. Genghis led his soldiers more than 300 kilometres through the Tengger desert before attacking the Xi Xia people from the San guan kou pass. You can read more about his campaign here.

The Xi Xia kingdom was totally wiped out by Genghis and his men. Very little is known about this Kingdom today apart from the Xi Xia tombs that lie only a few hours walk away from the pass. I will be passing these tombs shortly.

The satellite imagery of this area is very good, so if you want to have some fun, go to the Great Wall Route page, and zoom in on one of the two last blue blobs. You zoom in by pressing the + (plus) sign on the map. To move the map, simply click and drag the map around.

The top one is at San guan kou. The next one will show you the enormous wind mill park I walked past a few days ago. You can actually see the shadows of the massive windmills on the satellite pictures! You can quite easily follow the Great Wall between the two points as the wall is so massive in this section, it shows up really well.

The place I came to last evening had more than just a shop. It also had a cantine for the workers and I was allowed to use it. I ordered a good meal and one more ‘to go’. It was great to eat real food and give the dried Yak meat a rest. By this time, as you can imagine, my jaws were almost dropping off from chewing the hard dry meat.

Today I started walking at six o’clock. The clear blue sky boded yet another hot day. The Great Wall was magnificent. Probably about eight metres high sometimes. Many places it was situated by river beds or hills that added to it’s effective height. Pretending I was the enemy of the Ming Dynasty, I was left thinking that a successful attack on the Great Wall would be completely impossible at some places.

At two o’clock it was getting very hot and I took a rest. I found a great spot on the top of a hill in the narrow shadow of the Great Wall. To the East I could see the green fields of Ningxia fed by the Yellow River. To the West, I could see dry dry mountains. The outer Ningxia loop that I will be walking the next week or two was designed to keep this important land in the Ming Dynasty.

Towards the end of the day I got to San Guan Kou. This was a very important military position with an interesting history that I will write about tomorrow.

I have taken the toll of the last days heat and weight. Three blisters on my left foot. I think mostly because the left shoe seems to be a bit tight. Also my big left toe is aching because it hit a rock yesterday. At San Guan Kou, I decided it was better to head for Yinchuan to recouperate, than have a bad walking day tomorrow.

27 kilometres today.

Sorry for not writing the last three days. This has been pretty tough going…

SATURDAY

On Saturday I started walking at noon. The weather forecast was grey and as I walked Northwards the clouds got thicker and it started raining. Sometimes it rained so heavily that I used the umbrella. My motto so far holds true though. Rather rain than scorching heat.

The walking was hard because I had ten litres of water, and 2-3 kilos of food. My rucksack is very lightweight and with the extra weight it’s pushing the limit of how much it can support. The walk was a slow climb and after about 23 kilometres I was totally exhausted. Although it had rained quite a bit, it was still really hot, and I was drenched in sweat. I donated a quarter of a litre water to wash off most of the sweat.

As I set up the tent, I saw lightning in the valley below. I hurried, only to see that I had no mobile phone connection there. It wasn’t tempting to seek higher ground to get the coverage either, as the thunder storm was closing in.

The lightning lit up the inside of the tent and at times I thought I was at a disco. I fell asleep quickly.

SUNDAY

There was sand all over the next morning. It continued to rain till about one o’clock, sometimes pretty heavily. Luckily I had the mp3 player and started listening to The Dragon Runner. Thanks for the gift Trude! I got up and started walking before two o’clock. I had been thinking a little about snakes because the inner tent was open to get ventilation. But as I lifted the groundsheet, I saw a scorpion taking shelter from the rain! Got some pictures of it. From now on, I am going to check my shoes before putting them on and be a bit careful when handling my tent and rucksack.

The day was very humid, but luckily the sun didn’t break through. My rucksack was 2-3 kilos lighter, but still a pain! I started eating the dried Yak meat. It is tasteful, salty and very dry.

The Great Wall was easy to follow and at places was an astonishing structure in the nature. Many places it was situated at the bottom of hills on the enemy side. The watchtowers were often up to a hundred metres from the wall and always in high places, so they had a good vantage point into enemy territory.

After 21 kilometres, it got dark.  I set up the tent right next to the Great Wall. It was a great camp site, but once again I didn’t have mobile phone coverage. I had to run up a hill close by to send off my position and get a weather forecast for the next day. Thanks John and Trude!

The forecast: Sun all day and about 31 degrees centigrade.

MONDAY

I got up at sunrise and started walking at 6.30.It had been an uncomfotable night because the inside of the tent was really humid. The outside was completely wet too.

The first 2-3 hours of walking went quickly. I remember finding some shade given by the Great Wall and thinking it would be the last shade for the rest of the day. That was at about ten o’clock. It quickly got very hot and soon I was walking at a much slower pace trying to control how hot I got. I took breaks more often.

At this point I was hungry and thirsty. I had more water, but wanted to be a bit conservative using it, as I didn’t know when I could get more. I thought it was time to find some shade and take the midday rest. Then I saw some students in front of me and walked up to them. The were out on a field trip for the day. They offered me some fresh watermelon. Mmmm - it went straight down. It was exactly what I needed. Something sweet and wet.

The students left for a mountian close by and I went on. Ended up just by the Great Wall sitting under the little umbrella. Not the best way to get away from the sun. It was way too hot to walk. . I drank more water and Ice Tea. Once I lay down taking the sleeping mattress over my feet and the umbrella over my upper body. This enabled me to rest, but it also meant I sweated a lot more than sitting up. After a couple of hours of this uncomfortable and enforced rest, the clouds started rolling in. That made it bearable for me to walk on.

At this stage I was down to 5 litres of water but plenty of food. In the heat, I eat too little… I looked over a valley full of wind mills. By my own judgement it looked about two to three kilometres wide. The GPS though told me it was ten kilometres wide. Nice to know.

I started walking, but soon had to rest. By this time every rest was ‘costing’ me a whole litre of water. I knew that this would be the last day I would manage without getting more water and eating a proper meal. I felt very warm and said to myself: at the next possible road, you go somewhere to get yourself balanced again.

About half way across the valley, I saw a number of buildings. It was the service buildings for the maintenance crew of the wind mill. I walked in and asked a guy if there was a shop, and there was! So I can get more water now. I feel pretty lucky, because without the shop, or a road with traffic on it, I would only have had water for another half or at most one full day. There was even a place to stay!

Weather forecast for tomorrow: 33 degrees centigrade. That’s two more than today. I’m off for an early start tomorrow too… 29 kilometres today.

Today I have bought water, Ice Tea, dried meat and fruit, nuts and so on, in preparation for the next 4-5 day stretch. The weather forecast is looking good with temperatures not going over 33 degrees C in the shade (91 F). That may not sound too hot, but remember there will be no shade where I am walking.

I have also made ten new pictures and loaded them up to the picture gallery together with comments. If I get time tomorrow morning, I will make posts on the Chinese site that a friend has been translating!

Pretty excited about this stretch. From the looks of it I’ll be on my own and I cannot bring enough water for five days in the desert. I have marked possible exit routes and points on the GPS in case things go to pot. But with a bit of luck, I will meet a farmer or shepherd here and there that might be kind enough to give me some water.

Please scroll down to see pictures that I have added to previous entries. I have also added comments to a lot of comments from the previous week or two.

The weather forecast for tomorrow and the day after is still: Extremely hot. So I’m waiting it out till then.

I am really looking forward to starting to share this blog with Chinese readers. The Chinese site will go live very soon