The Great Wall & western Beijing province

Beijing.

Building at the south of Tiananmen Square, central Beijing

My remaining traveller's cheques had got damp in the Sichuan rain - this caused big hassles in Beijing, and I had to run around the city's banks and offices for a day. I got replacements just before office closing. One great thing about the big cities is that foreigners are nothing new; you can walk around in relative peace. The Beijingers were very amused by my peasant's straw hat, though.


7th June.

I started out for the Great Wall on a hot, clammy morning. The roadside display read 36 degrees, and 60 decibels. Not a bad idea for cities - drawing attention to noise pollution. For once, I wanted it to rain on me; I was topless and in cycle shorts, but still sweating. Some kids cycled after me for a few kilometres, giggling at the spectacle. If I even waved at them, they'd collapse in fits of laughter. Pity I left my dogstick behind in Chengdu. The locals' estimates of distance seemed even more awry than usual, until I realised that they were using their own measure of distance - the li, which is about half a kilometre.

That evening, the wind rustled the tree canopy; the stifling air promised an electrical storm. I moved into the thunderous dusk, watching the great veined flashes start up ahead. It began to lash. I cycled happily in the downpour, smelling the freshness sweep away the sticky heat of the afternoon.

I reached the Huanghua part of the Great Wall at around nightfall. At a little shop by the Wall, I had a funny conversation with a giggling fat woman and her equally cheerful friend. We mimicked foreigners' Chinese accents and talked about how with the excess baggage rules for the plane back to Ireland, I'd end up cycling stark naked onto the flight.


8th June.

Woke up to the hotel owner shouting at his wife. He kept it up for about three hours. Maybe he's spent too much time near his tethered Alsatians - they're even more psychotic than him. This is not surprising - when they're not tied up, they're kept in little cages. There are lots of these animals around - it doesn't seem like many of them get the exercise a big dog needs. Usually, the only dogs you'll see being walked are the tiny, unathletic Pekingese (which of course are originally from this area).

I hadn't been expecting too much from the Great Wall; even so, I was a little disappointed. It isn't all that imposing - not very wide or tall. But as I scrambled along the crumbling wall, my opinion changed. The thing just goes on and on, along tall, undulating mountain ridges; every one or two hundred metres, there's a watchtower. The Wall was a colossal investment, and apparently was never very effective at keeping out the slavering savages. The resources would have been much better spent on training soldiers or making better weapons. But I can see the appeal of the project: an endless barrier, leaving nowhere vulnerable to the enemy. It just didn't work like that in the real world.

Cycling that afternoon, I saw a naked alcoholic on the canal bank - a filthy wild man. It's not often you see these outcasts around; I reckon the government plonks them all in institutions.

In the evening, I asked a farmer if I could camp on his land, and he offered to put me up in his house. I thanked him, but declined - I had enough experience of these early risers to know I wouldn't sleep very well. He invited me to join himself and his friends for supper; I sat on a brick, sharing their rice and pickled vegetables. He was an intelligent guy, and was interested in the world outside. He'd seen a programme about Irish travellers, and thought they seemed a tough, admirable people.


9th June.

My last day of cycling. I headed into the hills of western Beijing province. It was hot and close. The air was full of the shrill, multilayered hissing of unseen insects. A birdcall sounded like the first creak of a falling tree. On the road were two-inch grasshoppers and insects.

After a few hours' climbing, I began heading down, Beijingwards. Fat guys walked around shirtless, absentmindedly kneading their doughy bellies. People cooled off in the river, or skipped stones from the bank. I wished I could join them for a cool soak. I dipped my t-shirt and hat in the river, and kept cycling.

I reached Beijing in the evening, after about 10 hours on the road. In a park, old ladies performed the slow, beautiful martial art of Tai Chi.

At the hotel that night, a Swedish guy told me about an anthropologist friend of his who had studied witchdoctors in Benin. This friend had been at a beach ceremony with masked, dancing shamans - apparently, a cow had walked straight into the sea, drowning itself.

So that was the end of my charity cycle in China. I'm back in Ireland now, which is good in a lot of ways. I'm surrounded by my own language. I can see my friends again. I can drink cider, and eat cheese, toast, yoghurt, All Bran, peanut butter, and marmite. I can listen to my music. I don't have to eat camping food anymore, or be constantly tired and dirty. The backache is gone, the boils are fading from my butt, and the numbness in my little finger has vanished. And I'm anonymous again.

But I've left a lot behind. It was great to be so fit. I could eat well for next to nothing: especially in Sichuan, the food could be something else. Along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, the culture and religion is something really special. I had fun with the hard-drinking Kazakhs of Xinjiang, and won't forget the wonderful hospitality of the Zangzu people of northern Sichuan.

I hope you've enjoyed reading these accounts. I wasn't just doing this cycle for the hell of it. I would really appreciate if you could make a donation towards GOAL's work with street children in the Third World. If you're interested in doing this, please go to www.goal.ie . Thanks very much.

Paddy Carroll