Mike Chrisp

Up again at 6:45 and showered then packed everything but the laptops so that we could send a dispatch. We had both nearly finished when there was a knock on the door. Lao Wu entered with a laptop wanting all the photographs I had taken the previous day. Having just wiped the compact flash card from the camera after downloading its contents onto my laptop I would have to re-write them to the card. Once completed I could then copying them to his laptop. I started the procedure and continued my dispatch. There was another knock on the door. It was Lao Bei.

"Where Lao Wu?"

We tried to explain to him that Lao Wu had been here but left sometime earlier. He started shaking his head. "No sleep, no sleep! Too much kay fay." He had brought an external hard drive with him and asked for the photographs on my camera. This made life easier and I quickly transferred them across.

I continued working on the laptop only to be disturbed by another knock. It was the bellboy with a trolley to take all our gear down to the Nissan. We rapidly collected everything together and loaded them on the dolly. As we drove away Lao Bei asked, "You Hungry?"

"No thirsty, Lo ker la." We both replied.

We pulled up at a restaurant and Lau Lio from the previous night ushered us up to a private room. He beckoned to us, "See kitchen?" We went back down to the kitchen and watched them preparing noodles by drawing out dough into long thin strands just like I remember seeing spaghetti being made in Italy.

After leaving the restaurant we watched a couple of men playing "Tun Tun" a sort of draughts (checkers) game, in the middle of a busy walkway while the others went off and had some photographs printed.

Then we drove to the Flying Horse Temple. A Han dynasty tomb and Temple. (206BC-220AD) In the foreground was a tall column topped by a horse standing on one leg on top of a swallow. Behind in a pit was a series of horses, carts with umbrellas, men and a cow laid out as a procession. These were the life size replicas of the tomb's contents. We went up into a beautifully laid out courtyard with ancient trees all gnarled and twisted and crossed to the temple to look at the Buddha inside. We took our time but Lao Bei and Lao Wu both kept trying to hurry us along.

"Markul, Timmo, come, come."

The Chinese guide, who could not speak English, did not seem to mind after all we could not understand her. We dropped out and round to the side of the complex and entered a steel doorway. As we wandered down the passageway we had to stoop double to go through two very low doorways. Just off a small chamber and by looking through a metal gate we could see the original small bronze statues laid out just as they were in larger size outside. They were discovered by accident in 1969 and have become a potent symbol of northwestern China.

Previously to entering the temple complex, Tim had had a drive in a rally-specked Jeep Cherokee. We now piled into the vehicles and sped of towards the Tengger Desert to photograph and experience off road driving in sand dunes. Lao Lio split a water hose and we thought he might be stuck but they repaired it and we continued back to Wuwei after we had filmed and photographed the desert and the vehicles driving.

We pulled into a garage workshop and the same young man from the previous night beamed at us as we recognised him. We spent a good hour waiting while they worked on the car. All the wheels came off and they checked the torque settings on every wheel.

It was passed three in the afternoon and we had to have some lunch. So it was back into town and taken to another private room for a quick bite and then back to the cafe for coffee and another photo opportunity before Lao Bei said, "Let's go!" Handshakes all round and we were off again.

The road was flanked on either side by low brown hills as we headed towards Jianyuguan and through the Hexi corridor. This was where the silk route entered old China and was referred to as "The Mouth of China."

We were skirting to the south of the Badain Jaran desert when it started raining. The water mixed with the sand to make a yellow brown mud. To the north the low brown hills had higher brown hills and behind them were even higher hills. Suddenly we came across a wall about 15 feet high coming in from our right as we headed northwest. After about a mile I said to Tim, "I think that's the Great Wall."

"No, no, no, no. No great wall," said Lao Bei.

After a  while the low brown wall was still on our right. "It's got to be the Great Wall," I said.

"Yeah, you're right," said Tim. "There's a sign, Chang Chen - Great Wall."

"Great Wall, Yes, yes, yes." Said Lao Bei.

We pulled off to the side of the road and got out. We photographed the structure from the crash barrier with an interlinked wire fence beyond. The expressway just cut straight through the wall, which continued off to the south west and disappeared into the distance. It was still raining. The low mud wall was a poor relation compared to the Ming dynasty brick and stone example outside Beijing. It may have been over 5000 km long but it was never joined as one continuous structure. Whole individual sections were built at strategic sites to keep out invaders.

The scenery became dull and boring -- flat with nothing in either direction for miles and miles. The expressway we were on and a railway line south of us were the only structures to break up the monotony. On the horizon we could just see the Qinlian Shan mountain range.

We spent the night at Jiuguan and after dinner finally made it to bed at 1:45am. This hard pace was taking its toll on us and we were longing to have a decent long night's rest.

—Mike Chrisp

close window