Turpan & Jiaohe

The Turpan depression is the lowest point in China, and the second lowest in the world after the Deadd Sea, at 155 meters below sea level. It's also the hottest place in China, with a recorded high of 48°C.

Turpan was also my first exposure to Xinjiang, even if it was almost 800 km from the border with Gansu. As the bus from Dunhuang was ultimately headed for Urumqi, I was dropped off at the northern end of town, where the highway clips the edge of town.

I had no idea where I was but started walking south along a major road. I eventually reached town, but even at 8:00 in the morning I had to stop a few times to cool down. After walking around the center of town for a bit, I headed to the Turpan Hotel—which was supposed to have dorms—hoping that they still accepted foreigners. It took a while for the English-speaking attendant to show up, but she said I would be able to check in later—I think they accepted foreigners because they were a large three-star hotel that also hosted tour groups in their main hotel operations.

When I checked in that afternoon, I discovered that the dorms were actually located in the basement of a side building whose entrance was to the right of the main hotel entrance steps. Lots of people seem to complain about these dorms, but in my mind they were actually pretty good: 3 beds in an air-conditioned room with a TV and attached bathroom featuring a western toilet, and daily cleaning from hotel staff, all for the typical hostel price 50 yuan per night. Given that hostels usually lack AC and are much dirtier, being in a fairly dark and humid room (there was window high up on the wall, but always closed since people tend to use AC instead) was fine with me, especially since I didn't plan on being there that much.

Emin Ta Minaret aka Sugong Ta

After dropping my bag at the hotel, I decided to see one of the major attractions in Turpan: the Emin Ta Minaret.

You can take bus 1, 6, or 102 to get there. I took bus 6, which takes back streets and drops you off near the rear entrance to the mosque. I ended up walking all the way around to the front entrance because I couldn't read the signs pointing out the shortcut access, which seemed to indicate it was an exit only. It was a pleasant walk through empty backstreets bordering on grape fields, and much more interesting than simply being dropped off directly at the entrance.

Anyway, a bigger problem is that Lonely Planet calls it Emin Ta—and only gives the Chinese characters for Emin Ta—when everybody local calls it Sugong Ta and the signs and buses only use this name (苏公塔). This makes it kind of tough to tell if you're getting on the right bus, not least since the buses don't all seem to have numbers on them.

The back roads that bus 6 takes you over is a nice introduction to Xinjiang, however, as you pass through dusty streets lined with mud-brick houses—all very monochrome and Central-Asian looking. Between this kind of architecture and the poplar trees, this is the sort of landscape I was expecting, and hoping, to see in Central Asia. Dunhuang may have offered a taste of it, but this is where it really felt like the Silk Road was beginning.

Muslim cemetery near Emin Ta, with typical Turpan lattice-brick grape-drying houses in background.

Beds in front of houses and in the streets are a common sight in scorching-hot Turpan.

Living quarters below, grape-drying on top, and sleeping platform out front.

View of Emin Ta over grape vines.

The minaret is 44 meters high and richly ornamented with decorative brickwork.

Modern admission gate to the mosque complex.

Below the mosque's main entrance.

Unwinding in Dunhuang & Mogao

From Jiayuguan to Charley Johng's Dune Guesthouse

Standing-room tickets—which let you get on the train but don't assure you of a seat—are never fun, and are probably least fun when on a train leaving at three in the morning.

I was lucky enough to find a seat, but the car was full of people trying desperately to sleep on uncomfortable hard seats arranged facing each other, with garbage and spilled drinks littering the tables and floor. I managed to get a couple hours sleep, and when I awoke was able to enjoy the rising sun over the desert.

Early morning on the night train.

This is still part of the Gobi, just like it was way back in Shainsand, Mongolia.

It makes you wonder what else you miss by traveling at night.

The train station in Dunhuang is some way east of the town, and when the train arrives there is a big rush and excited taxi drivers and touts. You can ignore them, as you can take a bus into town for about 5 yuan. Any of the green minibuses in front of the station will be going into town.

I decided to stay at one of the hostels by the sand dunes, and at the time Charley Johng's was the only one of the dune hostels listed in Lonely Planet. I went to the cafe of the same name in town to ask about both this dune guesthouse and his hostel in town, but the lady there said only the dune hostel had room. It turned out that this was basically a lie, and that in reality the hostel in town had been sold and was under different ownership, so all guests were directed to the dune hostel. You can take a green minibus to the dunes for about 3 yuan.

On the bus to the sand dunes.

You take a few turns off the main road to get to Charley Johng's, but there are signs along the way.

Birds on a wire.

There's a volleyball court right next to the guesthouse.

The main thing going for Charley Johng's is the location. Other than that, it's not the greatest. The toilets are smelly and fly-infested, and the toilet-paper baskets are usually full and smelly. There are flies in the common areas, and not much hot water for showering. I was pretty unimpressed, but the location makes it convenient for seeing the dunes (especially if you're going to sneak into the park to see the sunrise)—if inconvenient for seeing the town.

Jiayuguan and the western end of the Great Wall

Xiahe to Lanzhou to Jiayuguan

There aren't any direct buses from Langmusi to Lanzhou, so you have to transfer in Hezuo. Some reports suggest that there are two different stations in Hezuo and that you might have to take a taxi between them, but I was able to transfer at the same station.

Arriving in Lanzhou, I thought I would probably have to transfer stations in order to get a train to Jiayuguan, but one of the drivers in the bus-station courtyard, before I could even make it into the station, said they could take me there. They weren't leaving for a few hours, and it was a night bus, so I left my bag with them and went out to explore the city for a few hours.

Lanzhou didn't make a huge impression on me. I saw an interesting mosque, but like most Chinese cities it seemed to be a temple to capitalism, with modern shopping malls quickly replacing anything that might have looked traditional. And although Lanzhou supposedly has the most polluted air in China, the air there was a lot clearer on both the times I was there than it was when I was in Beijing.

Although I returned about a half hour before the bus was scheduled to leave, apparently I was later than they wanted; when they saw me coming the rushed me onto the bus and we quickly left. This was my first sleeper bus. These buses have three rows of bunks, but you can't lie flat on them, as they have an inclined back and head area, with your feet going into a compartment below the head of the person in front of you. Although they're actually pretty good for sleeping, by the same token they're definitely not designed for people more than 6 feet/180 cm tall.

Typical sleeper bus configuration.

We arrived in Jiayuguan before dawn, which is to say sometime before 6:30 am, and since the bus didn't terminate in Jiayuguan we were dumped on the edge of town where the highway passed by. A taxi delivered us to the center early in the morning, and I wandered around looking for a place to stay. Like Lanzhou, however, nowhere would accept foreigners except for those that charged more than 160 yuan per night. That's too rich for my blood, so I decided to stay the day and take a train that night to Dunhuang. It's both frustrating and unsurprising that China appears not to want many foreigners to see the west of the country, with their crackdowns especially affecting budget tourists who are more likely to interact with locals and less likely to be taking tours.

In order to figure out what I was going to do I again had to rely on a friendly internet cafe to help me get online, and suss out train schedules and how to get to the station by bus. I made my way to the train station, bought the only kind of ticket they had left—standing room on a 3:00 am train—dropped my bag at the left-luggage room, and headed back into town to see if I could rent a bike at the Jiayuguan Binguan. After locating the hotel (there are multiple buildings in the same compound, so finding the right person to talk to was slightly difficult) and finding the right person, I was able to rent a bike. This was great, as biking to the sights was really a great way to see the sights and enjoy the landscape. It's too bad that more places don't rent bicycles in China, as it's a great way to explore and I used to rent bikes in SE Asia all the time. Step up your game, China! Oh wait, I forgot that they don't care about foreigners and no self-respecting, loaded Chinese tourist would ride a bicycle anywhere.

Fort Jiayuguan

Fort Jiayuguan basically marked the farthest western extent of Ming China, strategically located at the narrowest point of the Hexi Corridor, and it's where the Great Wall ended. There are some pretty amazing pictures out there of the fort with snowy mountains in the background, and it's a pretty impressive sight at any time of the year.

There's a park and pond just southeast of the fort. It's surprisingly unkempt for a Chinese park.

As in Dunhuang, tourists can get rides in ultralight gliders to fly over the fort.

Poppies at the base of the wall, from the south.

Jiayuguan Fort is surrounded by an outer wall and an inner wall. The outer wall, which you can see above, is fairly small, but encloses a much larger space than the inner wall. The inner wall is much more massive and encloses a much smaller area.

The inner wall and fort is the small box on the left. The outer wall encloses it, and then all of the green area is the modern park surrounding it, which includes a museum.

Tourists can play dress-up inside the inner wall.

Looking north over the fort and inner wall, which is much more substantial. The restored stretches of the Great Wall are in the mountains back there.

Lanzhou & Xiahe: paranoia as you leave China proper

Lanzhou: welcome to the west

I had no idea where I would go from Lanzhou: on the one hand, I thought I might want to take a trip up the Yellow River to the Buddhas and caves of Bingling Si, and/or make the sidetrip up to the town of Xiahe and the Tibetan Labrang monastery there. I thought I would figure it out in Lanzhou.

I arrived at the train station in the morning, and headed to the the Lanzhou Huar (Flower) Hostel. They weren't in any guidebooks, but I had picked up a pamphlet in Shanghai (I think), and found instructions to them. It took about an hour to get there by bus because the directions weren't the greatest, and when I arrived I was curtly told they don't accept foreigners. This was really strange, especially since they had the English-language pamphlets on their reception desk! They said it was because of government regulations, and they weren't very helpful about telling me if there were any other cheap places in Lanzhou. I asked if I could use their bathroom, and they said it would cost 10 yuan to do so! Not very impressive (especially since it seems they had lacked the necessary permit to accept foreigners since at least 2011, yet were advertising themselves to foreigners during this time); I really don't understand the inability of people in hospitality industries to be helpful when they have to turn people away.

I backtracked to the station, and looked for the cheap hotels listed in LP. No luck, as they were either closed or not accepting foreigners. I figured that since I wouldn't be able to stay in Lanzhou that Binling Si was out, and that I would head to Xiahe. Unfortunately, the bus station listed in LP had been torn down. Well, at least the LP was still right about where the train station was.

I then tried to go to an internet cafe and see if I could figure out where to catch the bus to Xiahe and how to get there. Except the government requires you to swipe your RFID-chipped ID card in order to get online, effectively shutting out foreigners from using the internet. Thankfully, the owner over-ruled the attendant and swiped me in with her own ID card, letting me go online.

I managed to find the location of the new Bus Station as well as the South Bus Station, and determined that there should be buses running to Xiahe into the afternoon. I went the the new Bus Station (a couple of blocks east on the road in front of the station), only to find that the buses to Xiahe only run from the South Bus Station. I hopped a city bus to the vicinity of the South Bus Station, then got off and wandered around until I eventually found it, and got a ticket to Xiahe in the early afternoon—about 7 hours after arriving in Lanzhou.

Crossing the train tracks on my way to Lanzhou's South Bus Station (which is actually well west of the main train station, and near the Lamnzhou West Train Station).

Although Lanzhou is already at an elevation of 1500 meters, the road steadily climbs to Xiahe, which is at 2900 meters. The road starts out running through dusty, dry mountains, completely devoid of vegetation except for small fields and trees planted by farmers. Then the road begins to climb in earnest, and the scenery turns decidedly green as it does. Lush fields and trees become the rule in the valleys between the increasingly-high mountains, but the biggest surprise being the abundance of new and impressive mosques that seem to pop up every few kilometers.

As we push higher and higher, the valleys narrow but the scenery remains quite green if not as lush. We stop seeing mosques, and before we know it we're pulling into Xiahe. The bus station is in the Chinese section of town, and the Tibetan quarter doesn't begin until a little further up the valley, so the introduction to the town is familiar. The closer you get to Labrang, the more Tibetan the town becomes.

As I arrived late—at around 5:00—all of the hostels were full. The Redrock Hostel said I could sleep on the floor (albeit at full price), so I ended up doing that. I thought their bathrooms—although appearing clean—were a little smelly, but it would turn out that by regional standards they were actually quite good.

Xiahe

Xiahe is home to the renowned Labrang monastery, which is said to be the third-largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world. It once housed 4,000 monks, and although that number has dropped to an official 1,500, some claim that there are actually about 2,000 monks studying there. Regardless, it's big and there are lots of monks, and even more pilgrims.

A kora is a circuit that the devout walk around religious site, and you typically do it in a clockwise direction. Labrang has two koras: an inner kora that simply surround the monastery itself, and is lines with prayer wheels; and an outer kora that runs along the mountain behind the monastery.

After leaving my stuff at the Redrock Hostel, I went out to explore Labrang for a couple of hours before it got dark.

Tibetans reading notices on a dusty street at the edge of Labrang. While the Chinese section of town is all paved streets and newer buildings, the Tibetan sections are (or were) in a much greater state of disrepair.

Along the main street from town to the assembly hall.

Hohhot & Inner Mongolia

Erenhot to Hohhot to Hostel: an exercise in frustration

Once I made my way from the random location where the jeep from the border dropped me off in Erenhot, I made my way to the railway station to get a ticket on the train to Hohhot. Unfortunately, it turned out that the train to Hohhot wasn't running that day, so I would have to make alternate plans. I went outside, and there was a bus parked out front, but it turned out that it was only running to Beijing. One of the Mongolian kids getting on the bus was interested in me, since I was a foreigner, and his mom spoke a little English. She talked to the driver, and when they heard I wanted to go to Hohhot, they told me to wait and that there would be a bus. They gave me a ride to the bus station and told me where I could get a ticket to Hohhot. Since Lonely Planet had no useful information on Erenhot, I would have been in a real jam without their help—a GPS with offline maps would also have been a lifesaver on so many occassions.

Anyway, the bus to Hohhot was interesting. All the passengers were Chinese, and they displayed typical Chinese manners: eating sunflower seeds and spitting the shells on the ground, which is also where they put their garbage; smoking even though it's a non-smoking bus; and generally being noisy and annoying. A couple of times we passed really touristy ger camps—complete with concrete gers or lots of modern buildings or restaurants surrounded by a few traditional gers (which the Chinese call Mongolian steamed buns)—and whenever we passed them the Chinese would whip out their cameras and furiously take pictures of them... on a trip in Inner Mongolia from the Mongolian border to Hohhot. I think this tells you something about just how Mongolian Inner Mongolia is—even if they do technically still use the traditional Mongolian script there.

I arrived in Hohhot an hour or so before sunset, and immediately went next door to the train station to try and buy an overnight ticket to Pingyao for departure the next evening. I was lucky enough to get a hard sleeper berth, in what was one of my easier ticket-buying experiences. This station also had turnstiles at the exit lanes to prevent queue jumping, which was a nice touch.

The next objective was to find the hostel recommended in Lonely Planet, the Anda Guesthouse. It turns out that they not only had the Anda placed incorrectly on the map, but Michael Kohn had completely botched the written directions on how to get there, with incorrect streets, incorrect bus stops, and instructions to go one direction when you were supposed to go the opposite direction. It took almost 90 minutes to find the hostel from the time I was two blacks away. When I finally arrived and checked in, other travelers told me similar stories of futility.

There was a 60-something Australian lady staying in my room that night, and we swapped storied and recommendations as she was coming from Central Asia and headed towards Mongolia—the opposite path as me. I think I got the better end of the deal, as she wrote down some recommendations in my Lonely Planet on the best places to stay and get information, whereas I only told her how to get to UB by local train.

The 2012 Olympics were on at that point, and the girls working at the hostel were eagerly watching. Chinese Olympic coverage seems to be like American: very patriotic and covering mainly the events that they do well. So they were naturally showing women's weightlifting, and I got to hear commentary from the Chinese girls about how mannish the lifters from other countries looked. Not that the Chinese lifters looked particularly feminine, but whatever.

One day in Hohhot

Inner Mongolia, like Tibet and Xinjiang, is an Aurtonomous Region. This is meant to reflect their distinct cultures and suggest additional autonomy, but in practice I think it's all window dressing. Inner Mongolia should be an example to both Tibet and Xinjiang as to just how successful Beijing can be in replacing minority communities and population with Han immigrants, though: Hohhot is almost 90% Han, with only about 9% being Mongol and 2% being Hui Mulsim; Inner Mongolia as a whole is 79% Han and only 17% Mongol.

In Hohhot you'll see Mongolian script on a lot of buildings, and the typically blocky style of quotidean Chinese architecture is enlivened with ger-like decorations on the tops of many buildings, but the feeling on the streets is decidedly Han, with the most exotic and noticeable accents coming from the Hui minority, and not the Mongols. I wonder if part of this isn't because China is a food-centric culture, and Hui food is better than Mongolian food. Of course, the fact that Hui are just Muslim Han while Mongols are not Han may have something to do with it, too.

There's a world of difference between Mongolian parks and this park in Hohhot. For one, Hohhot hardly looks anything like Ulaanbaatar (both are classified as cold semi-arid climates), as there are artificial ponds, green grasses, and lush trees. But the bigger difference is in terms of how people use the parks: in China they're real places of communal socialization and heavily used as such (here by the ubiquitous ballroom dancers).

Rollerblading class.

Mongol newlyweds in front of ornamental pond.

The Bus from Ulaanbaatar to Kharkhorin

I ended up staying in UB for the duration of Naadam, despite the rapidly diminishing returns after the second day, which was enough time to see the Choijin and Gandan moasteries.

On the 15th I caught the bus to Kharkhorin, as I figured I would do as much as I could in Mongolia independently and without taking a tour. But even something as simple as taking a bus isn't as simple as you might think. First of all, buses to all destinations don't even run every day, let alone at all hours. Buses to different places also leave from different locations, and it's difficult to get up-to-date information. Thankfully, the information office located in, of all places, the lobby of the Erel bank (located midway between Sukhbaatar square and the State Department Store along Peace avenue) had the bus schedules for the different station on file in a binder.

Getting a ticket at the western Dragon Bus Terminal proved somewhat difficult, however, as everything is in Cyrillic and the ticket windows did not seem arranged according to any discernible system: whatever was written above the windows was not the destinations the windows served. Add into that the Mongolian-wrestling style of queuing, and it was difficult to shove your way to the front and pantomime your question, especially since the attendants would rather deal with a pushy Mongolian speaker than a clueless foreigner. I eventually found the correct place to get a ticket, but it probably took a good 20 minutes.

I was one of the last to get on the bus, and my bag went into the same compartment as the jerry-cans being used to transport airag (fermented mare's milk). These can predictably leaked (this is why they were put in a different compartment than most luggage), but my bag only let a small amount of airag in, which was nice.

The trip itself took about 7 hours to cover the paved 350 km, with a break about midway at a small collection of buildings and shops. Everyone on the bus made a beeline to the toilets/outhouses, as Mongolians are very bad at holding their bladders. I suspect it is because—like the Chinese—they have not trained themselves to hold it. Kids are encouraged to go wherever and whenever they want, and this seems to carry over into adulthood (they can obviously go whenever they want when living as nomads).

I spent the break taking pictures.

Look grim? Well, it's probably a typical small Mongolian community.

Dirt streets strewn with trash—a nightmare when it rains.

The gers in the surrounding fields look much more inviting... at least from a distance.

Most gers nowadays tend to have satellite dishes and solar panels.

Less than 0.4% of Mongolia is arable: this land is about as good as it gets.

Just after we turned onto the road that led to Kharkhorin and Tsetserleg, we saw a car that had crashed into a truck head-on. Although the car was crumpled and mangled, the driver has standing in the ditch and talking on his phone. Airbags and crumple zones are wonderful things, though I can imagine the crash could be financially ruinous for him. But it's kind of hard to understand how this kind of crash could happen: there's not a lot of traffic in Mongolia, and this was on a straight, paved, and dry road. But I think the emptiness of the Mongolian landscape lulls drivers into a false sense of security, and does little to dissuade people from drinking and driving.

Ulaanbaatar & Naadam

Mongolia is a huge country with a small population (and the lowest population density of any country in the world), historically wedged between two competing Communist countries. After gaining independence from China in the early twentieth century, Mongolia became a Soviet satellite state—something which has had a huge effect on the country. Russian influence is seen in everything from the second language of most older Mongolians, where older Mogolians were educated, the gauge of their railways, the architecture and design of their cities, and most palpably in the huge drop in living standards that occurred when the USSR dissolved. Even more obviously, Mongolia uses the Russian Cyrillic script, in contrast to Inner Mongolia, where the traditional Mongolian script is still in official use.

Walk around Ulaanbaatar and you can see evidence that things may have been better 30 years ago; you can also see that virtually no investment, building, or upkeep has been done in the intervening timespan; and you can't miss the signs of Mongolia's recent, mining-driven economic growth. You'll encounter some old Soviet architecture that is quite gorgeous, a lot of very institutional Soviet-style apartment blocks in varying states of disrepair, streets that were once paved but are now almost completely dirt and gravel, ramshackle houses and ger districts that have sprouted up in the last decades, as well as shiny flashes of prosperity and Western consumerism.

A ger compound. The families living there are probably all related. Unplumbed outhouses are the norm. Ger districts are a cheap way for rural families to move to UB, and once one family member has a foothold in the city it's extremely easy for relatives to move their get to the city. When a nomadic family loses their herd in a rough winter, they move to one of these districts, and it's estimated that 700,000 of UB's residents are just these kinds of people.

The city isn't really prepared for the sprawling development that has come with increasing urbanization. The Soviets designed the city to hold 500,000—one third of the current population.

As a city, there's not a lot to do or see in Ulaabaatar—at least, not outside of Naadam, the summer sporting festival that happens in Ulaanbaatar from July 11-14 (places outside of UB have their own Naadams at slightly different times). Otherwise, there are a couple of temples, a museum or two, a few other sights, but not much else. Unfortunately, UB is a place where you'll be forced to spend a fair bit of time: since UB is the only city of size, and there aren't a lot of roads, almost all travel goes through the hub of UB instead of running directly between smaller cities; and even if you are taking a private tour, you'll need to stay in UB for a while to arrange your tour unless you've spent a lot of money and booked ahead from outside Mongolia. If you're traveling independently, I suggest that you spend as little time as possible in UB when you first arrive, as you'll likely be forced to spend a few more days there later in your trip, during which time you can see what the city has to offer.

Almost all budget tours are arranged through guesthouses, which universally double as tour operators. Guesthouse tours tend to be the cheapest available, and run around $45 per day at the budget end. Most guesthouses tend to run similar itineraries, and these itineraries are pretty much exactly those listed in Lonely Planet. But the problem is that they only run when there is enough demand, so you could be waiting for a while if you want to take a specific tour. And although an all-inclusive $45 isn't terrible, on almost all tours at least a couple of those days are going to be absolutely wasted days because of the time it takes to travel to regional centers. Some tour operators will let you join a tour in the middle, for only a few days (space permitting), which can be a way to save money and limit yourself to the things you want to see (I contemplated joining a Gobi tour for a few days in Dalanzadgad, but the tour completely filled up at the last minute so they wouldn't have had space). You'll see messages in guesthouse about people looking for partners to join specific tours, and some people end up waiting for a while. Another option is to try and do things yourself: buying a motorbike and then selling it before you leave is an option, and there are lots of places near the State Department Store that sell discount outdoor gear (unlike in Nepal, it seems to be authentic gear that is a few seasons old), and lots of people buy or rent tents and sleeping bags. Given the limited bus schedules, some people try to hitchhike, but if you do this you really have to be prepared to potentially spend the night camping by the side of a road, especially if you're traveling somewhere less popular.

That van that looks like a VW bus is a virtually indestructible four-wheel drive UAZ-452 bus, first made in 1965 and still in production. Almost all guesthouse tours use them.

Naadam

I timed my visit so that I arrived in UB on the first day of Naadam, July 11. The train arrives in the early afternoon, and by 3:30 I was at the stadium where the events, other than horse racing, occur.

Although they sell tickets to the wrestling stadium, you can get into certain sections for free. I just followed people into the entrance where there were no ticket-checkers. The stadium was fairly empty, but the area outside the stadium was much busier. There were food and drink vendors, and it was like a small-town fair.

I saw this in my first hour in Mongolia. It was actually pretty anomalous, even though there are horses everywhere in the countryside.

The Blue Sky building behind older buildings in the downtown area, on the road south to the stadium.

Heavy traffic around the stadium. The Peace Bridge carries this street over the railway tracks and a small river, and although they were repainting some trim on the concrete railings, they were not replacing the yawning holes in the sidewalk, where square access panel for reaching the electrical cables hidden under the sidewalk were missing. Walk without paying attention—or without a flashlight at night—and you might easily end up falling down one of these holes. That's life in Mongolia.

He's got his wrestling costume on.

Everyone looks their best.

Ulaanbaatar is never as interesting as it is during Naadam. The atmosphere is festive, many are in traditional dress, the streets are crowded and vibrant, and everything is very family-friendly. The actually events are something of a let down, as there's not a lot to see unless you know how to properly appreciate the events, especially since the horse racing takes place outside of town. The real attraction, however, is in watching the people, and letting the ambiance wash over you.

View from the top of the stadium.

Competitors sit in the stands, waiting for their time to take off their cloaks and put on their wrestling uniform.

Getting ready to go.

The Great Wall at Mutianyu by public bus

There are a few places near Beijing where you can see the Great Wall, all with their pluses and minuses. The closest, most famous, most heavily restored, and busiest of them is Badaling. You can get cheap tours that go here, but many of them spend little time at the wall and lots of time at souvenir shops where you're pressured to buy stuff. The second most popular and restored place is Mutianyu, which is supposed to be a decent compromise between accessibility, authenticity, and popularity. While there are less restored and more secluded areas of the wall, they are also much harder to access as a solo traveler.

When I went to Mutianyu, it was possible to go all the way there by public bus, via bus 867. Although it did not run during the winter, it was possible to go from the terminal outside Donzhimen station all the way to the base of Mutianyu. Sadly, that service seems to have been eliminated in July 2014.

What remains is the express bus 916, which is faster and runs all year round, but doesn't go all the way to Mutianyu. Instead, it drops you off at Huairou, which is about 20 minutes away from Mutianyu. From Huairou you can share a car or minivan to Mutianyu for about 20 yuan per person, or you can take bus 936 and get off after the 8th stop (but be careful because it's not the final stop). Bus 916 runs every half hour or so from Dongzhimen's Public Transfer hub, which is a covered indoor terminal accessible from inside Dongzhimen station, and costs 12 yuan.

In all honesty, the need to transfer to a minibus or private car would change the calculus on where I would go: it was so much simpler with the 867 direct bus. Now, I would probably consider going to Simatai or Jinshaling, both of which are as easy as the new 916 + car route. It takes longer to get there, and you can't really make them a half-day trip, but they are said to be more interesting and photogenic than Mutianyu.

The Great Wall Experience at Mutianyu

Once you're at Mutianyu, you really have to wonder just how bad Badaling is, if this is considered the less-touristed location: there's a cable car you can take to the top of the mountain where the wall is located, and a toboggan ride you can take down from the summit. It's not a particularly long or hard walk up to the wall—stretches of the wall are actually steeper—and once you reach the wall you find lots of vendors selling souvenirs but mainly things like beer and soft drinks, as well as chocolate bars and snacks. It's hot and humid, and unless you want to pay multiples of what you should pay, be sure to bring your own water and drinks from Beijing.

The smog that plagued Beijing was no better at Mutianyu, where visibility and contrast were in short supply. While light smog might be atmospheric, the conditions were pretty ridiculous.

A dog relaxes at the base of Mutianyu.

I wonder what it looks like on a clear day—believe it or not, but there are actual towers in this picture.

And a landscape in the fuzzy white background.

At least you can see something more than 5 meters away in this one.

Looking up towards the eastern terminus of the restored wall.

The eastern limit of the wall, overlooking the unrestored and overgrown sections of the wall.

The eastern section of the wall is by far the busiest section. There were a lot of obnoxious young Western tourists there, doing their best to perpetuate the stereotype of the Ugly American. Shirtless guys, everyone talking really loudly and obliviously; the usual lack of consideration. In all honesty I was kind of happy to see them, as a reminder that Westerners can be every bit as inconsiderate and grating as the Chinese are.

It also gave me some insight as to what sorts of things the loquacious Chinese might be talking about with the strangers they chat with: if they're anything like these Americans who had been thrown together on this sightseeing expedition, they talk about nothing more consequential than the Chinese equivalent of college sports and their favourite TV programs (very topical when climbing the Great Wall, I'm sure).

The cable car and pathway deposit you at the bottom of this section of the wall.

Looking out from a guard tower.

 One of the vendors at the top of a steep section had a Chinese flag, and would offer to take your picture for free. It was a good ice-breaker and goodwill generator.

Top of the hill gives you a good view of the haze.

This was the other end of the restored section. No one was here because it was the top of a long climb and most people don't have enough time to go that far.

On the way back.