Jiayuguan is a tourist trap! But a welcome one...

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So we took our first over-night train for the trip without much incident. We arrived in Jiayuguan this morning around 7am and headed right to the Great Wall Hotel, which is built in the shape of the fort of the Great Wall here in JYG. We were in need of a real hotel after having such a grimy time in Lanzhou. So we checked into our room and immediately went back to sleep (we were woken by bright lights and loud music at 5:30am!). When we woke up, we grabbed a quick bite, and then called the taxi driver that we had met earlier that morning, who offered to take us around to all the touristy places for the day. So we headed out, and first went to the WeiJin Tombs. It was a tomb in the middle of the desert with paintings and murals on the walls which are 1700 years old!

After that we headed to the "Hanging" Great Wall, which was a part of the great wall which literally went up the mountain at a 45 degree angle, making it look as if it was hanging on a wall or something. Unfortunately, it was quite obvious that the whole thing was newly made, but it was still cool to give a visual of what it looked like so long ago, and it provided some great views of the mountains and desert around JYG.

After the hanging wall, we headed straight for Jiayuguan Pass, the most western fort of the Chinese empire. It had two large traditional chinese temple-like towers, one at each end, and with the desert and then snow-capped mountains in the background, it was a majestic site.

Unfortunately, a ticket into the "park" surrounding the fort was ¥100, and seeing as we had already spent a good amount of ¥¥ already, we decided seeing the fort from afar would be good enough.

So we headed to the last attraction of the day, the first official fort (most western) of the great wall, which is situated right on the edge of a huge ravine, which hundreds (or thousands) of years ago was probably rushing with rapids, but is now quite dried up. Sticking to true tourist city fashion, the actual "fort" (really now it just looks like a huge block of sand...) was only a small part of a bigger park, with a re-built camp and a look out deck (with plexi-glass floor) over the ravine. However, because of our current state, Witt and I decided to embrace our inner tourist and participate in the most touristy activity of all: zip-lining across the ravine!

We though it would be best if Witt went first, since I was worried that if I went first, he might decide not to go, and I'd end up at the bottom all alone, so Witt got all geared up, and was basically thrown on the line and pushed off in a matter of minutes. I soon followed, and as I went "flying" down across the ravine, I felt like a gongfu master (ala "Crouching Tiger...") flying across to fight off the savages on the other side of the ravine. When we were both safely at the bottom, we walked back across, over a hanging bridge (which was actually much scarier than the zip-line) and met our trusty driver at the top. He took us back to our hotel, where we took a little break, and then headed out to the night market for dinner, before heading to bed.

Although Jiayuguan was probably the most touristy place I've been to in China, it still have a good idea of what life must have been like for the Chinese soldiers sent out to literally the end of the world to watch over their empire. According to Chinese history, the emporers of China during this time really thought that theirs was the only true civilization, with only nomads and savages living outside of their walls. It must have been a daunting task, standing at the Jiayuguan pass, at the first fort of the Great Wall of China, in charge of protecting the whole empire from the desert that was all you could see until the horizon on every side. I'm glad I was just visiting.

Tomorrow we head to Dunhuang.

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