Nancy Overseas: From Almost the Middle of Nowhere to the Middle of Nowhere

Saturday morning, Alan and I boarded a bus headed through the thick, chilly fog toward BaYin (巴音), a town in Inner Mongolia. The ticket-taker asked, "Why are you going there?" As soon as I replied were were going to SanGuanKou (三关口), she nodded and exclaimed, "Oh, you are going to the Great Wall!" She promised the bus would drop us off right at the Wall. I took some comfort from the fact that she recognized the place, since this confirmed my belief that this part of the Wall, while remote, would have at least some minimum level of civilization so a couple of tourists could ask directions, buy some tea, or at least have cell phone service.

Over the next 2 hours or so, the bus filled with Chinese people, all of whom came to know that the two foreigners were going to the SanGuanKou Great Wall. At one point, when we stopped to pick up a passenger who flagged down the bus along the side of the road, Alan asked, "Do you think we're there? That could be the Wall on the left." I thought, "No, we're not there yet, there's nothing here. At SanGuanKou there will at least be some signs." About 1 minute later, the driver stopped the bus and the ticket-taker called out, "Hey, you two foreigners, SanGuanKou! Here's where you get out!"

As I glanced out the window, the thought of simply not getting off the bus crossed my mind. But 30 Chinese people's expectant stares forced us to pick up our backpacks and disembark. We surveyed the area: 1 long mud wall, several large mountains, 1 road (the one we just came on), + nothing else. No minimum level of civilization, no person, no cup of tea, not one ray of sunshine, and most ominously, not a single bar of service on the cell phone. Two words: cold and desolate.

But there we were, at the mud Great Wall of NingXia. It looks completely different than other sections of the Wall I've seen: the portions in the eastern part of China are huge, solid, brick structures built on top of mountain ridges, and they convey to the visitor a powerful sense of longevity and strength; this portion is down in the plains between the Helan Mountains, the same color as the surrounding sand, and clearly shows the wear of hundreds of years of rain and wind. It's lonely and beautiful.

The Ming Dynasty built this section of the Wall in 1531, but sand flows buried it. The Ming repaired it 9 years later, adding the three protective towers that give the area its name, SanGuanKou (三关口). Oddly, this section of the Wall was entirely forgotten, or perhaps discounted as not actually part of the Great Wall, until it was "discovered" in 2002.

We saw almost no one in four hours of walking along the Wall, and experience that jives with that of a couple who walked the whole Wall in 2006. We came across the dwelling of a sheep farmer who was apparently unconcerned that his dwelling violated the posted rule not to construct shelters or buildings on the Wall.

The photos below shows the first two of the three towers. We could see the third tower from the second, but we did not make it all the way there. I think it would have been at least an hour hike beyond the second tower. The first tower happened to be located on the hill behind the sheep farmer's in-wall residence. The sun finally came out by the time we hit the second tower, giving us a little warmth and some better light for photos.