We'd come back down to 2000m at Jiayuguan from 4000m at Jingtieshan iron ore mine and had time to kill this morning, so I went for a look around..............
I walked out of the hotel for a while in the general direction of the Jiayuguan Fort (or Pass, but guan is mandarin for pass, so it get's confusing) I finally climbed into a taxi and told the driver in mandarin that I wanted to go to Jiayugaun Great Wall, which confused her until I pulled out my camera and made clicking motions. She grinned and told me the Chinese name and off we went.
RMB100 later and I'm one of the first tourists in the gate for the morning. Though 'tourists' in China are 99.99% Chinese coming to see their own country and sights.
I walked around the place taking photos, got befriended by a group of young army guys who loved the fact that I replied ni hao to their greeting of hello. That lasted ten minutes until their boss came around the corner and they took off like rabbits. There must've been something else they were supposed to be doing.
The western end of the wall was built in the 1300's and has snow capped mountais to one side and another moutain range on the other side. It was the end of the line for the people who were banished apparently. Out there is the Gobi Desert and not much else. The majority of it's walls are rammed earth and still stand today, though with some restoration work along the way.
The surprise for the day for me was the ultralight flying over and around the fort. I didn't expect to see one in this country and would've loved to know where the ticket office was for that thing. I suspect it would be hard to get a foreignor up in on of those though.
