Today I went back to where I left off and headed for a Ming Dynasty Great Wall section to the North of Zhongwei. It was hot as usual, but I have taken some simple measures to make things a little more bearable. My beard has gone and so has all the hair on my head, except the last 3mm. I also wore a very lightweight and thin pair of trousers that I have saved for this warmer weather. All the changes seemed to help a little, but it was also pretty humid and I was sweating most of the time.
I managed to avoid big roads for the most part today which took a little longer, but was nice. The new GPS does not work unfortunately. It simply cannot lock on to the satellite signals. I am glad I have the old and faithful one, but it was a disappointment since the new one has pretty good road maps. Will have to see what options are available for getting a replacement 🙁
While I was walking along, not all that happy since there was no Great Wall around, and pondering on what to do with the GPS, I stumbled across a little and very old woman sitting outside a small house. I walked closer and her son came out the front door. She was 90 (!) years old and had the most charming face! Her son said it was OK to take pictures, so I will upload one at www.picturesfromchina.com when I get back from the Inner Mongolia trip.
An hour later, I stumbled across a short section of the Great Wall and a beacon tower that I have not seen on any map before. Small things like that really make my day and when I have time, I will report it back to the Great Wall Forum. At the end of the walk, I was right next to Zhongwei airport and at the start of a Great Wall section close by.
Time to sleep now, because tomorrow I’m off to Inner Mongolia! I am going to join Andreas there to explore Zhao, Qin, Han and Jin Dynasty walls. Andreas is a very knowledgable guy, and has been of great help in planning and executing the first part of this marathon walk.
Because I will not be walking along the Ming Dynasty Great Wall, I plan to take a little break from blogging every day here and will instead write a report of our trip when I return to Ningxia. I guess this is like my summer holiday… There will still be a new picture every day on the site and also a new word of wisdom every day.
I wish you a good summer, and have fun in the US tomorrow!!
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Til Norske lesere:
På TV kanalen CCTV 5 viser de Bislett Games nå! Artig å få litt stemning fra gamlelandet 🙂
Gleder meg til å se bildet av den gamle damen! Ha en god sommerferie i Indre Mongolia:-)
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Too bad about your new GPS not working well. You know since it’s new it needs time to download almanac data and so forth, so for its first use you might need to turn it on and leave it in one place under the open sky for a while.
I too would be interested to know what kind of GPS it is.
What?
When I finally take the kids on vacation alone and have all the time in the world(well more like 2 hours around midnight) to follow up on your daily activities, then you decide to take a vacation! You lazy b.. 😉
Well I’ll let it pass this time. I knew you would manage the walking part, but I’m slightly more impressed over the fact that they understand your chinese. (Last time I heard you speak chinese was in barcelona and i’m not sure we got those eggrolls that night..)
Have a good vacation 🙂
/Lars Ole
Have a good holiday! Hope its a bit cooler up north and you have a good time walking with Andreas. I have never been to Inner Mongolia before. Guess there is plenty of grasslands there?
I remember walking across the new runway at Zhongwei Airport last year. The airport was under construction and no one seemed to mind. The small fortress next to the airport is very interesting.
Trude – Nå kan du se bildet 🙂
Bryan – Thanks Bryan, I will slip it out again for a longer period of time to see if this helps.
Lars Ole – Wishing you a good vacation Lars Ole! And yes – I have thought wabout sending a yellow kayak down the Yellow River! It flows pretty fast, but it doesn’t look TOO dangerous… 🙂
Jon – Yes – they have beautiful grasslands up there!