23 and 24 February 2019 – Dandong (China)

The first visit of the day was to the village of Husan, 12 kilometres from Dandong, to see the eastern end of the Great Wall of China which was built on mountains on the border with North Korea . The wall was built from 1368 to 1644 and stretches 8,850 km (5,500 miles) to Xinjiang in the far west. It was certainly a hard walk to get to the top of the mountain and from where the wall could be seen to extend into the distance. This is also called the Tiger Mountain section of the Great Wall.

On the way to the top

   

The eastern end of the wall looking toward the coast

Part of the Great Wall

From Hushan I visited the Taiping Wan Barrage which controls the flow of water in the lower Yalu River and also has hydroelectric machines installed in the dam. The power station is run by the Chinese with the generated power being supplied to both China and North Korea. One point made by the guide was that boats from both countries used the river no-one could land in the other’s country. 

The Taiping Wan Barrage

Lunch was at the local village restaurant where we had to wait for the owners to open as they they had been at a wedding. There were local stalls in the middle of the road so I bought some strawberries from one. They were very big, very very sweet and packed singly,which I did not expect.

After lunch I was taken to see the Quigcheng Bridge (or Broken Bridge) the part of which is a war memorial on the Chinese side of the river. Quite a number of Chinese people walked out on the bridge to stare at North Korea, considered to be a mysterious country by the Chinese.

A short cruise on the river followed on a boat full of Chinese people. They were quick to hire bioculars from the crew to have a better look at the people and soldiers on the Korean side of the river, shouting at them being and completely ignored by the Koreans. I took a photo of a woman on the boat only because her boyfriend was taking so long to take one that even I was annoyed. She just laughed to see what I had done, the boyfriend not even noticing.

Desolate North Korea

Desolate North Korea

Dinner was at a dumpling franchise and not very good. The dumplings in Kathmandu china west were much better. I’d asked the guide if there was somewhere I could get a back massage so he took me to a place that he used, one operated by blind/partially sighted people. I think that the Chinese train these people to do massages so to be productive as I have found them in Kunming, Lhasa and now Dandong.

Pagoda at the top of the mountain

The following morning we walked up to the pagoda at the top of Jinjiang Mountain Park. It was a lovely morning at the bottom of the mountain but the city was covered in clouds by the time I arrived at the top. There were a lot of families around as part of the park had children's rides and a type of funfair. One wall was covered in letters with people reading them. When I asked what they were I was told that they were letters extolling the attributes of adult children written by parents looking for marriage partners for their male and female children. I guess arranged marriages are still common there.
A haircut followed, in a tin shack after the guide phoned the barber to see if he was working on a Sunday. The guide told me that he had asked around his friends for a suitable barber for me saying that most barbers he knew were too young and he thought that they could not be trusted to cut my hair and beard. The older barber did a good job. Lunch then back to the blind massage parlor for another back massage .

I was then taken to see the new part of Dandong with it’s high-rises and the new bridge over the Yalu River built and paid for by the Chinese but not in use as there were no roads from the bridge on the Korean side of the river. It’s called the bridge to no-where.  Most of the flats in the high-rises had been bought by wealthy Chinese from outside Dandong as an investment and most were empty as without the bridge being used trade, and people, were not moving into the area.

On the river

The bridge to no-where

New Dandong

Then it was another walk along the river to use up time before getting the train to Beijing at 18.30 hours.

Looking towards North Korea

A group of ladies on the river side

The security people at the station looked serious and scary as I walked up to them then smiled at me and let me through without any problems. I don’t know if the carriage was kept deliberately cold as everyone was in their bunks (bedding supplied) by 21.00 hours with all lights out but I did notice that the heating came on later. I was in the 2nd class compartment which had six bunks and lucky enough to have a bottom bunk. Lights were put on at 06.00 hours when everyone was wakened for arrival in Beijing at 08.40 hours. It took 90 minutes in a taxi to get back to the Huguosi Hotel