What a night… – The Great Wall'ker

I knew I was in for a cold one. There was no wind, so within a few hours, there was a lot of humidity hanging from the inner tent in the form of ice. I had a 1.5 litre bottle of apple juice as a cold companion in the sleeping bag so that it wouldn’t turn to ice during the night. Although I had walked a fair distance considering the conditions and was physically tired, I lay awake for a long time. I had absolutely all my clothes on. Fives layers on the upper body, and two on my legs and feet. Because the tent is small, I had to try and move carefully every time I turned around. This didn’t prevent ice falling in my face and on the bottom part of the sleeping bag making it wet.

Next morning I started packing the tent while a dog barked at me from a safe distance.

Yesterday’s forecast said there was more snow on it’s way, so I decided to return to Datong today. Every day I have to cross 6-8 steep valleys, and I don’t want to risk walking in hilly terrain with ice under newly fallen snow. That would be pushing my luck too far.

In a few days I go to Hong Kong to apply for a new Visa as the one I have now soon runs out. Then I will meet my sister and mother in Beijing! I am really looking forward to seeing them again after so many months of solitude in China.

12 kilometres today

6 thoughts on “What a night…”

Svein Erling February 4, 2010 at 9:46 pm

Happy birthday, Robert! Did you know that you age quicker in China than in Norway? According to my Internet, Datong is GMT+8, so 5 February should have started quite a while ago.