We woke up in the Temple at five o’clock to bells being rung, but soon fell asleep again. We walked 25 km yesterday and were tired. (And so were our sore feet) At about eight o’clock we got up.  The Monks invited us to breakfast consisting of white bread buns and a thin soup.

We had a good talk to the leader of the Temple who told us that he had travelled around China for 20 years, seeking out wise people in order to learn from them. If only I had done the same!!, then I might have had the wits not to follow my dream of walking the Great Wall of China…

My brother and I got off to a fairly late start after talking to the Monks.  We kindly thanked them for their generosity in offering us a place to spend the night.

Then we started walking again, and after a while we noticed it had started blowing hard. Also, the skies were getting darker and darker. We looked at each other and both thought ‘sandstorm’.  This was later confirmed by a person we asked in a small village. After walking for a while and assessing our soles and souls, we decided to call it a day and took a bus to Zhangye.

We are really happy about the decision because it has been raining hard whilst we have been here. We have made a decision that we are not going to kill ourselves, but rather enjoy life now and again and that is what we are doing right now.

If you want to have some fun with Google Earth, go to the Great Wall Route, and zoom right in on the blue marker for the 6th of May (day of year: 125), and you can see the Temple where we spent the night.