This morning we headed east on the most direct road to the sea and within a short time decided to turn back up to Highway 101 because this secondary road was clogged with trucks and coal factory towns and nuclear power plants. So we turned north 30 kilometers, which took over an hour, and found it again and happily braved the snowy landscape for the solitude of the mountains. (Except for Qinglong, which I would linger in given more time. From my perch on the motorcycle it seemed a bustling, young town, maybe there was a university there, and beautifully surrounded by mountains. But we passed by quickly in order to get to the sea before dark.)
Our destination was the beach. Specifically, the start of the Great Wall of China in Shanhai on Liadong Bay, at a place called Shanhaiguan. We braved the outskirts of the big scary town of Qinhuangdao (where there was another nuclear power plant, coal mine, and gravel strip mine), and turned north to ride a large, empty highway for about an hour. Being almost November, this beach resort area was fairly abandoned, so we enjoyed having the roads mostly to ourselves for a change.
We’d been following the Great Wall for quite some time, and we saw where it might disappear into the sea, and were also following the signs to Mountain-Sea town. It is difficult to be illiterate in China especially when zooming past signs at 80km/hour, but this one was short and easy:
On the road signs the second character was usually reduced to just the right hand part of the character, which made it even easier. The name of the town means Where the Mountains Meet the Sea, Steffan explained, and I led the way. (Most of the time Steffan is not riding in the front, by the way, because his muffler is so incredibly loud that neither of us can stand to hear it. Even he is using his iPod as self defense. And also, its good to be gone already when Steffan hits town, otherwise we’d be noticed sooner. Not really what you call flying under the radar.)
We turned down the road to the sea to find a bustling big city, clean and new and an "old section" completely razed and being re-built from the bottom up. The Lonely Planet said they started this project in 2006 and wanted to get it done in a year. I think they will. It looks nearly finished and is fabulously picturesque with the original old walls around it and some major monuments untouched. I’ll bet in summer 2008 it’ll be absolutely overrun with tourists. I must say, a little guiltily, that we three had a blast roaring around in the construction zone on mud roads under curlicued archways and workers hauling big glass windows on their shoulders. Everything here is done by hand. Manpower is not a shortage and the workers laughed at us, happy for a distraction. It’s certain they’ve been working hard for a very long time. I took a movie of Steffan riding through taking a movie, see it here.
But I really really really wanted to put my feet on the start of the Great Wall of China where it rose from the ocean so we motored on down to the end of the road past the touts who wanted to wave us into for-pay parking lots and other distractions, and found a small road that wound around an iron gate to a beachfront motel and bungalows under construction, of course, and jumped off to run into the sand and snap photos of the wall much to the chagrin of the construction boss. Here’s a movie of that.
But we were done by the time he explained we weren’t allowed to do that and happily rode back to the Great Wall of China Where the Mountain Meets the Sea Parking Lot to pay our 50 RMB and stroll the rebuilt wall–it was just in crumbles and restoration couldn’t be helped, so they said. It’s difficult to know what’s old and what’s new. We frolicked on the beach some more–as much as you can frolic in leather pants, jacket, boots, and layers of fur-lined knee pads, scarves and vests–climbed the various stairsteps and ramparts, perched ourselves on the walls, and touched the sea, which always makes me smile.
Being at this site where the Great Wall officially begins makes me feel somehow that my journey in China has ended. Tomorrow we’ll ride a long, boring highway the 250km back to Beijing, and aside from a party with all the people I’ve met in China on Sunday, it’s pretty much over. Waah!
Here is the October 29th Photo Album.
And see https://carlaking.com/china2007/movies/ for an unannotated directory of all the little Quicktime movies I’ve taken — please don’t expect "professional" films 🙂
There are many more stories to tell. Please sign up for my mailing list to get them, for most won’t be included in these live dispatches as they aren’t live any more.
Thank you for joining me on this misadventure. As always, I appreciate your comments.
Carla
