It was cold and humid last night, so I didn’t sleep much. Have put on more clothes tonight. I got off to a slightly late start and walked eastwards along a ridge. To the left I saw the valley and river I needed to cross.
There was drizzle in the air, but after an hour this turned to steady rain. Soon it was raining harder and the wind increased. Looking behind me I saw a thick grey wall coming closer. There were no buildings in the area, so I set up the tent quickly and took refuge. It was hard to find a good place for the tent. Once sitting inside, I inspected the tent floor.
Several places I felt sharp thorns sticking through the two bottom sheets of the tent. I suspect my new inflatable sleeping mattress has a slow leak and now I know why… Three and a half hours passed before the rain did the same.
I went on, after packing the tent, slightly frustrated that the rain had taken away some valuable walking time. After crossing the river, I found a small restaurant. I ordered two dishes and two portions of rice. One to eat there and one for the road, or Wall.
The man that greeted me was a funny guy with a loud voice. He spoke slightly slurred. I am unsure if it was the dialect or that he had been eating and drinking with his friends in the room inside. His wife took the order and made the food. As I was eating the man asked me questions of which I was able to answer about half. His wife seemed embarrased by his straight forward approach and every now and again she would tell him off and shake her head in resignation.
I had to laugh, and managed to communicate that they were like an old couple where he would say something that provoked her, and she would tell him off. They both had a good laugh and agreed.
Before long I was off again. I spent a little time to find the Great Wall on the Northern side of the river and went on until sunset.
Thanks for the talk yesterday (brother) Jon!
13 kilometres today
Since then you can answer half questions raising from the chinese who spoke slurred , apparently , your chinese had huge progress!
I havent been able to follow you as close as I wanted for the last week. Packing down the house steals all my energi and now it´s getting closer Robert! We leave on sunday the first! Maybe, if we can sort it out, we can have a little chat before that. / Fred.
I`ve had to laugh thinking about all the energy you must be using every night blowing air into the sleeping mattress! And Im very sad to hear about the leakage.. must replace it with av new one in some way then? (send a new one, or buying one in China?) I miss you very much, and admire you for your heavenly endurance!:-)
Sorry about the Google Map not updating itself properly. The latest code appears to be buggy, and it is not picking up the data file correctly. Hopefully they will get it sorted soon…..
Andarchen – I think so – If they speak slowly, then it is now possible to have a conversation.
Fredrik – Thanks a lot for the talk a week ago Fredriko. I wish you good luck with the big move to the US.
Trude – Luckily it looks like the mattress is behaving. I am going to cut the ground sheet I used for the first half of the trip as an additional protection against all the neasty thorns.
Brother Jon – No problem Jon. I hope Google sees that they have a problem and fix it soon.