The intended end point of this stretch was Dingbian in Shaanxi province. I was not sure I would make it though, since I had a couple of shorts days of only about ten kilometres. Anyway – after eating a good breakfast and ordering my favourite dish: Xi hong shi chao ji dan *) to go, I felt ready for the challenge.

*) Eggs and tomato in a great mixture with some hot green stuff that I don’t usually touch

The day went well and soon I could see Dingbian in the distance much like yesterday. The last stretch had a lot of mosquitoes, but with the custom-built mosquito net over my desert hat this was no problem. In fact it was a true joy to see them buzzing about my head without being able to reach me!! It made me feel very wanted, and a little less lonely   🙂

The Great Wall sneaking it's way under a dual carriage way.

By the time I got to the outskirts of Dingbian I was very happy, and very tired. Happy, because I am finally in the next province and have the intensely hot experience of Ningxia behind me. Tired, because of what I write in the next paragraph. Because I have no more pictures in the picture gallery, I had to return to Yinchuan and my laptop in order to make more pictures, and also to do the necessary changes on the websites because of the change of month in two days time.

Although it is getting cooler, I still haven’t a great appetite which means I am not gaining weight and walking for many hours a day in fairly hot weather is not the best thing if one has too little energy. I have to find some trick to gain weight! Chinoook of the Great Wall Forum had some good ideas about this – will have to send him a mail. Dofu right Chinoook? I’m already eating the grilled rou on the spears.

I took a bus back to Yinchuan. The two packages that Trude and John have sent have still not arrived which is a shame. And as it has been quite a while since they sent them, I fear they may not arrive at all   🙁

27 kilometres today