It’s on journeys like this that one realises how little we actually need to get through every day. If I look back, it’s shocking to see how wasteful and demanding we are on the planet. Through journeys like this, it’s not only the appreciation of what I have in life, but the outpouring of friendship from friends and strangers, that’s what gives life value. This is where a journey gets real.

No journey like this would be of much value if I were to come home with only the self-fulfilment of what I have achieved. The real success of any journey is when it is bigger than the individual. That we can now put out our hands and touch the lives and hearts of those around us, and make a difference in a stranger’s life.

I sit here writing this blog thinking about the interactions that Andy and I had in the haemodialysis unit in a hospital in Yulin. Row upon row of patients were lying there, attached to machines which have now become a crucial part of their lives. Screens flashing, dials slowly turning and the life blood that flowed through their veins was now being extracted filtered and cleaned and pumped back into them so that they can live a normal life for the next few days until the cycle has to be repeated.

As we walked between the beds, they would sit up look at us and give a welcoming smile. Even the patients that were asleep and were woken up, would sit up and their face would light up with a welcoming smile. The interaction in this unit touched me deeply and inspired both of us to go out and in some way return the inspiration that we received from the strangers to go out there and not give up. To fight for every day and make the best of it, not to complain and be thankful that we are healthy.

This is a message that we are now carrying with us as we run the wall: to inspire everyone we meet to get out there, be thankful and appreciate life. But, live a healthy life – it’s in your hands to take control of.

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This hamlet has an estimated 6km of caves and interlinking tunnels under the village that were dug by the villagers in the ‘70s. The reason behind this was that Mao had warned the country to prepare for every eventuality in war and a probable nuclear strike from the west.

As we ran into the village, I saw Pete – the camera man – standing just outside the village. We ran towards him, expecting an interview or some pics, but he was standing uneasily moving around, so I asked, “What’s up?”.  He said in an uneasy tone, we are all in one room. I didn’t really know what he meant by this. We walked in together and chatted. Slowly the pieces came together. We were all together on one bed. I have been through this last time I was in China. The bed is a massive hollow slab and under it they light a fire so that it can keep you warm in the winter. It’s an experience sleeping like this as we are so accustomed to our own space.

We had a fantastic home-cooked dinner that was served at a table in the owner’s bedroom. It was quite cool: they cooked the dinner, placed it on the table and then went and lay on the bed and watched us eat. It was now our turn to hit the sack.

We each found a space and nestled down – six guys in a bed! Then it started. Within minutes, Dragon – the team leader – was fast asleep, but what a noise! I’ve never heard snoring so loud. I shouted at him, others followed suit, but nothing really helped – within a minute he was back at it with vengeance. I tried to push it out of my mind, but no, it just got louder and the rhythm kept changing. Eventually I got up and went to look outside if there was a spot that I could sleep, but the wind had picked up and was sand blowing everywhere plus the night had a chill in the air.

It was back into the den. Dragon was now in full swing. He would draw in a rumbling breath down his throat it gargled and into the depth of his lungs. There was then a slight pause and then came the fire. He would expel the air with such bravado and force that our teeth would chatter. His lips would flap in the wind and his nostrils would flare out as he blew every last drop of his breath out until it sounded as if he was being choked and suffocated all in one. Then he would gasp for air, and once again the massive suck on the cool night air began as he filled his lungs to capacity and breathed life into his carcase, reviving and bringing himself back from the edge, he would then roll over and bellow out a new challenge to the night and anyone who dared try and sleep!

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A lot has changed in the last 12 years since I last ran the wall, but the one thing that I have noticed is the amount of areas of the wall that are now closed and fenced off because they have been turned into massive tourist parks. You will find a small section of the park is dedicated to the wall, but most of it is all sorts of other touristy things that are not directly related to the wall.

Once again, we were trundling along the wall, just past a section that has been turned into a film set. There was actually a film being shot as we passed through the massive set – no-one seemed to mind or really care about us. We even watched a bit of the filming and took pictures of the cast and on we ran. A few km down, we hit this massive blue fence. As with all the fences we come across, it does not mean stop, but find a way over or under. Under we went, we could see the massive sections of tourist infrastructure that had been built – walkways, Mongolian villages, and archery ranges amphitheatres and more. We took a wide berth of this and continued to run, unnoticed.

In the distance we could see the wall continue past the fence, so on we went. We were nearly there when we noticed the last stall and the option for a cold-drink. We were past the risk, we thought. We turned in and were greeted by a beautiful guide. She was dressed in leopard skin “One-Zee” and was really pretty. She invited us in for a tour, but we explained we only wanted a cold drink and we would be off. Andy then went up to her and asked if he could have a picture with her, this was followed by a few great poses. Ten minutes later we were on our way. We walked out, turned left and off we ran, 800 metres to go and we were through. Once again we had managed to duck and dive through a closed area.

We then heard a shout behind us, it was the girl, gesturing and calling us back. Andy was the first to turn and go back to her, Pete and I continued to walk on, looking back. We could now see she was telling us that we could not go in that direction. We pointed to the wall and shouted “Chang-Chang”. We could see Andy was trying to explain what we were up to, smiled at her and followed us as we headed down the road as quickly as possible. We picked up pace and kept looking back until the stall was out of site, then picked up the pace to a jog. We had made it, we were now joyfully discussing our getaway and the route ahead out and under the fence.

Our joy came to a quick abrupt end as a policeman on a motorcycle cut us off and stopped us, gesturing in no uncertain terms that we were now basically in shit! That will teach us for just thinking the pretty little face would just leave being brushed off and not taken seriously and thinking that we had got away with it. We were now trying our best to convince the policeman that we knew nothing and were following the wall.

We showed him the video of our journey, called the crew and got them to speak to him, but we could see things were turning bad. Eventually the policeman wheeled his bike to the building ahead and went inside. He then came back with another man and we tried all over again, but no one was letting us budge an inch. They then pointed to a Jeep and gestured we get in. Andy in front, Pete, the policeman and myself in the back. It was off to the office, this is normally where things generally escalate and go all wrong.

We were driven about 2 km back into the park and off loaded, the policeman then gestured towards the big office block about 1 km away and off we walked. You can imagine every possible scenario was being placed through as we walked; the 3 of us were trying to come up with the biggest story possible.

On reaching the complex and massive front, there was security everywhere, he pointed to some chairs at the gate and said “sit”. I sat down like a naughty school boy and he disappeared into the office. Five minutes later he came out again, looked at us and disappeared again. We looked at each other in confusion. Then he was back again, he stopped looked at us, we thought “oh hell, we are going to be marched inside”. But out of the blue he just gestured to us: “Go, go. Get the hell out of the park.” We needed no more encouragement.

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We were on a bad day; we had lost each other as well as Pete (the camera man). The weather was turning and starting to rain. The worst was we had a few hours to get to our collection point as well as to find a way through the yellow river canyons. By some miracle we managed to all find each other and now it’s time to get a pin from the crew so that we can move to a point where we can be extracted.

Andy, who is the go-to-guy on the map app, sent off our location. It was an almost instant reply from the crew.“What the hell are you guys doing? You’re in Mongolia, on the wrong side of the Yellow river, and we can’t get to you. It’s a more than 200 km round trip by car.”

It’s a few weeks later and we had been running village roads for hours, there was no Wall in the area, just the odd tower. I remember commenting to Andy that the village set-up had changed, no more walled clusters as is the norm in China, things are more spread out. Then there were strange round tents scattered around all over the place. On we went. It was now about 4 pm and time to send in our location to see where the crew were set up that we can head to them for the evening. In came the response: “Where are you guys going, you are 30 km off track, in Mongolia again.”

Yesterday we had a hard Wall day, hot as anything and just sandy scrub land, but beautiful mud Wall all the way. We were running next to the Wall and suddenly we were confronted by a big blue security fence, blocking us from following the Wall. So, we did the obvious: if you can’t go over, find a way under it. We did and on we went, 10 km down the Wall we hit a big resort area and on we ran. People were shouting at us to stop but we pretended we did not understand.

Twenty minutes later we were deep in the “dwang” – police on a bike and that was it. As usual, no one could understand each other so we called the crew who spoke to the policeman to see if they could get us out of this mess. After a while the policeman gave us back the phone: “Where the hell are you guys? I can only understand 30% of what the policeman is saying. Have you guys veered off into Mongolia again? Send me a pin, I will have to come sort this out.”

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It’s not long and the vehicle slows, there is immediate excitement in the car, ‘look there, look there to the right, can you see it, where, where’. You were just too late; the Sable antelope got spooked and off it ran for cover in the thicket of thorns. So, on the day goes, sighting after sighting, click, click of the camera and so the entourage of cars grow, all out now looking for the big five.

In China we are the game, and a rare sighting at that, especially when we come running through a village in shorts at sunrise with the temperature at two degrees. There are yelps of excitement as everyone dashes for their phones to capture this rare sighting. The first pic is of our legs, or a sneaky video of us running, then there is the selfie request.

The worst is when we are a “road sighting”, cars will come to a screeching halt in the middle of the road, trucks swerving and breaks screeching to avoid an accident. With utter amazement people just sit and stare at the bare-legged aliens running along the road and then dash off into the farmlands for shelter. Windows drop and phones are shoved out snapping away. I now know exactly what game feel like, hour after hour as these crazy people snap away, passing ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ comments as they then drive on into the sunrise. The best is when we run into a tourist area of the Wall. We become a bigger attraction than the tourist attraction.

As the day wears on and we tire with the running, so do our smiles also wear a bit thin, and let’s say we are not so accommodating, but the sightings continue. It’s the same thing hour after hour – I now know what the wild game must feel like after a long day. They probably just wish the sun will set and that everyone goes home and just leaves them in peace.

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“Uncle D, I have been through shit, but this was the most painful day of my life.”

Here I sit thinking about the years I have spent sharing many parts of my journeys and adventures. Focusing a lot on the hardships and how I have found the mental strength in overcome them. In a way it’s easy to share this and give advice on how to deal with a situation, but it’s a whole different story when you are the one staring adversity in the face, facing uncertainty, failure and not knowing what the outcome will be. As I find myself immersed in this journey that harsh reality of actually how difficult it was all those years back. I suddenly find it all rushing back to me. In a way for the past 12 years my mind has shielded me from this reality, only giving me snippets of the hardships, but motivating me with the achievements.

We are now facing every fear that we had before the journey, what if, what if, it has now turned to reality of what now.

It’s now the digging deep, deeper that we have ever dug before, harnessing every scrap of mental strength that we have, in my mind all I hear screaming at me is just another 5 minutes, just another 5 minutes.
 

Continue Reading: How things have changed 12 years later

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Well believe it or not, nor has it been in this part of China either, in the dry arid landscape of the cold North West.

The winter is on the way out, but there are still freezing cold howling winds pushing this mass of cold air across the mountainous area at great speed. Every other day you get a splattering of snow. This is all ok; one can handle this and dress to deal with it. The only problem is when you feel you are managing to deal with it, in comes the worst possible scenario – rain and lots of it.

I can handle most things and rain is one of them, but when this comes with howling winds at Zero degrees, I am sorry, it is almost impossible to deal with.

We looked at the weather forecast in the morning, it was not looking good. Rain was predicted all day. The big issue was that by midday the wind would pick up to gusts of 50 KM per hour with a wind chill factor of – 17. We put on as many layers of clothing as possible and some extra in our back pack. The last layer that we had was a Gore-Tex outer rain coat and hit the road.
Slowly the cold finds its way in between the layers of clothing.

Normally the first to go are the hands, as they lose feeling and mobility. The wet gloves just get colder and colder with the hand movement when running. Then the cold goes down your neck as the unrelenting rain finds ways to penetrate the seams of your clothing. Your cheeks are numb, lips blue and nose just runs. Head down you just push on to keep generating heat. Your feet are wet and useless, they are so cold and numb it feels like you are running with two blocks of cement as feet.

The first gust of cold wind hits you; takes your breath away as the temperature plummets with it, the gust turns into a constant blast of chilled air that now drives the rain into every crevice between your clothing.

You drop your head, crouch the body to protect yourself from the wind and trundle on, the only thing that I can now default to is, it’s just another 5 minutes, it’s just another 5 minutes…

Continue Reading: Just to keep going

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Off we trundled to the office.

I remember saying to Andy – “We are in the shit, the last time I was asked for a passport in China and didn’t have it there was an issue”.

The explanations continue and in the end we worked out that they thought we were trying to get access without paying. Eventually an official arrived and could speak English. We now managed to sort everything out, but still no access allowed, and it was explained that there was no way through as the whole area had a 4-metre wall around it, so basically it was back the way we came. This meant that we would have an extra 10km to do. So, it was back to the only thing we knew. Our default setting, which is – “There must be a way out and we will find it!”

There was no way that we were going to do the 10km extra.

We headed towards the parking lot and the right turn to the exit, but no, we turned left and headed up the side of all the building and into the parklands; it wasn’t 10 minutes, there it stood, a massive 4 metre wall we were told about. All we could now do was walk along this wall to try and find a way over, a tree, or something. After a few minutes we came to a road leading parallel along the wall and straight to a guard house with a massive gate in the wall – was this an opportunity, or it was back to the office to please explain?


A motor cycle was parked in front of the guard house, I cautiously walked up to the window and peaked in; there sprawled out on the bench was the guard fast asleep, belly rising and falling as he lay. I quickly signalled to Andy and pointed to the gate, maybe there was a way over. Both of our eyes then caught it at the same time, the padlock was open, but hooked through the latch. We quietly approached, unhooked the lock and pushed the massive gate open on its rollers just enough to squeeze through. As I went through, my rucksack hooked the lock and there was a massive clang.

We froze – nothing happened, and we slipped through and quietly closed the gate and Andy replaced the lock.

We were like two loaded springs, we just could not wait to get out; as soon as Andy got the lock back in place we shot up over the hill and into the distance, hearts beating like a couple of escapees.
 

Continue reading: Rain Yes Rain

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