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Published: August 14th 2008
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The morning started with the truck having a flat battery. We tried to push it started but couldn't move it very far. A change of battery and we were back on the road headed for Jiayuguan (the most Western Point on the Great Wall .... the title of this blog entry is a reference to one of the many Chinglish signs that we have come across!)...
A big day of driving. Drove for around 5hrs to Zhangye. (I would update this all on the map but it is in Chinese so I can't read it). The scenery was really good - mountains with snow peaks off in the distance. Zhangye we stopped for lunch and popped in to see the biggest reclingin buddha in China (or something like that). It was a really lovely spot anyway - old wooden temples and a really big buddha. After lunch we started getting into desert country. In the afternoon we arrived at a campground at Jiayuguan. We had a lazy afternoon - all ready for the big battle tomorrow. We were at Jiayuguan for a couple of days.
It was now the 11th of August. The plan was to head out to
visit the Jiayuguan Fort. It is surrounded by desert and would have been a pretty harsh life if you were posted to that spot. The township of Jiayuguan itself was quite surreal. There has obviously been a lot of money pumped into the town in a bid to attract the Han Chinese out West. As you drove into town there was a large dolphin statue balancing a ball on its nose ..... hmmm)
Back to the Fort..... it had been renovated in the 1980's so not much of it was a relic of the past. The had lots of wax dummies showing what each of the garrison rooms would have been used for; they had camels outside the walls that you could ride (I passed on that one) ....but best of all you could dress in military clothing and have a battle. The battle turned into Great Britain v the rest of the World. The Brits tried to lay claim to the victory but they only had one person who could hit the arrow target and the Battle of the Grent Wall was overwhelmingly won by the rest of the world (despite their protests to the contrary). Needless to
say that the Fort was a lot of fun! There was also a museum on the Silk Route that was very good.
We spent quite a few hours at the fort and then headed into town to organise food for dinner. The cook group organised the shopping and the rest of us went looking for a coffee shop. It was really quite hot in town.
We had an early dinner and then some of us headed back up the wall with sleeping bags and mats. The plan was to spend the night in one of the watch towers up in the wall. It was a great night
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