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Published: March 2nd 2011
By now I'd decided that Haerbin was probably a bit too cold for me, so I figured that I'd go on to somewhere slightly warmer...the North Korean border, why not!!! I got a train the next morning from Haerbin to Dandong, a town on the border with North Korea, which was quite interesting! There was a cool bridge that had been bombed by the US at some point, and now just ended mid river. In addition to that there was a cool stretch of Great Wall quite near to the town, so, after a shower, I figured I’d pop over there and climb some of it! It was really fun, and afforded some awesome views over the lake separating China from N.K, and the generally rather cool scenery that surrounded it. Whilst climbing it, however, I had managed to start at the wrong end, so I promptly made the big descent to the other end, only to find that there was, in fact no way back from this end... The result was a very sweaty Benjamin running along the wall and up and down some epic steps to catch the bus...which, I quite luckily caught.
Apart from those two things,
Peng Dehuai and his army.
I thought they were allies with NK?!there wasn't really much to see in Dandong, so it was time to go on to the next place...so off to Xingcheng!! This small town is one of the only towns in china to still have complete outer Walls that have lasted since the Ming dynasty (a long time!) I arrived quite late at night after a pretty horrible train journey in Chinese economy class that, despite the huge number of no-smoking signs, was still a very smoky experience. And asked to go to a hostel that lonely planet had recommended, by now it was about 11pm, and I felt very bad waking up the man sleeping on the sofa, and then the receptionist, only to be told that they don't accept passports here as a method of identification...interesting... The next place down the road didn’t have any rooms...and by this point I was getting a tad worried. The next place finally had a room. So, after waking up 3 sets of sofa sleepers/guardsmen, and their receptionists, I finally had a room! I got into my room and fell asleep almost immediately!
After hearing about these Walls, I had to walk around them, which was an unbelievably cold experience, but
Broken Bridge
Still left as it was after the U.S. bombed it. notice the shrapnel marks. it did let me see down into houses on the outside of the wall, which was quite interesting! There were all kinds of houses in varying states, and it was quite nice to observe completely unknown to the families themselves.
That night I had some delicious barbecued food from the streets and think I ate cockroach...tho I'm not totally sure, and had a nice chat with a couple who have been working in the same spot for years! Apart from that, I wandered around the town a bit, and attempted to use the Internet cafe, only to be turned away by the unbelievable amount of smoke that escaped through the door when I opened it. It seems that quite a few people seem to spend inordinate amounts of time in these places...either making a living by playing online poker, or wasting their time on Internet games like world of Warcraft. In fact, it's got so bad in China, that there's a new generation of homeless people appearing on the streets of cities after spending all of their lives on the Internet, not getting a job or having a real life, and eventually running out of money. The other problem
facing these gamers is malnutrition, with a Chinese girl dying a few years back after not eating for something like 3 days, and just wasting away at her computer! Needless to say, her funeral was held online... Speaking to a friend of one of our Chinese friends in Hainan, he told us that every day he plays over 7 hours of online games, and that it's the same for all but one of his dorm mates. Worrying stuff!
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kevin
non-member comment
That's not Mao
his name is Peng Dehuai, the commander-in-chief of People's Volunteer Army in the Korean War. This guy lead chinese troop to push the US army away from Yalu river to The 38th Parallel . He once took Seoul, but lost it later.