Pedalling to Pinggu

With the May 1st holiday looming on a near horizon, I was certain of one thing: I did not want to spend the holiday sitting in an easy chair in my apartment watching television.

Beyond that, I had no idea what I might do.

Neither did I want to prowl art galleries. My wife is an artist, and May, like October, is an active time in the business in Beijing, but my last three holidays had been spent mounting shows. I wanted—no—I needed a change.

I wanted to do something different. So I decided to bicycle to the Great Wall at Jiangjunguan in Pinggu District. Why Jiangjunguan? Sorry, I cannot remember why. I recall asking if any of the youngsters in my office had ever been there; they said, “No.” An older fellow said he’d been there: about 20 years ago.

So the soundness of the planning for my trip was lacking in many respects.

As is usual when doing something stupid like this, planning is about half the fun. Much of what you will learn about where you’re going will be learned in advance. Newly returned to bicycling, I consulted several Web sites about long-distance cycling and ended up narrowing my kit down to two panniers worth of stuff, including camera gear, some extra clothes, a bicycle pump and a tire repair kit, rain gear, some Snicker’s candy bars and a couple of bottles of Gatorade. The Web sites also convinced me I could physically do the trip, and finally I found what appeared to be a fairly detailed and dependable map to show me the way. There was always the cell phone if I got in a jam, assuming, of course, that I could get a signal.

Then, a co-worker, Rocky Li, decided he’d like to ride along. I was happy to have the company of someone who could translate, if needed.

We were set to depart at noon on April 30 when fate intervened in the form of additional office work for us both. We ended up spending our first night at my apartment in Beijing rather than chancing unfamiliar roads at night. The next morning, Labour Day, we arrived in Songzhuang about two hours behind schedule. With these inauspicious beginnings and more uncertain than ever, we departed Songzhuang via National Highway 102 (G102) for Yanjiao in Hebei Province at about 12:30 p.m. with Pinggu City in Beijing Municipality as our goal for the day. We had no idea how far away it might actually be when we started or whether the roads marked on the map would be of consistent quality or there at all, but the map indicated the trip was doable.

As it turned out, the stretch between Songzhuang and Yanjiao turned out to be just about the most difficult stretch of road for the entire trip. Getting to and across the bridge over the Chaobai River (Chaobaihe) between Songzhuang and Yanjiao is a hair-raising experience because of the heavy traffic, dust, potholes and the general state of urban driving practice these days. But we made it and turned off G102 onto the shady lanes of Yanjiao.

It was a full hour from the time we started from Songzhuang that we found anything resembling “countryside.” Even then, we had to pass through new urban developments, a recreational area and a several-kilometres long new light-industrial area north of Yanjiao before we did. But from then on, the road was flat, easy and mostly wide open as we headed eastward, except for a steady stream of dump trucks, cement trucks and rock haulers who treated the centreline of the highway as a rough guide only and plagued us most of the way from northeast of Yanjiao via Gushanying, Xiaocuigezhuang, Xiaowufu, Daxingzhuang and Zhaoheguo (road name and number unknown). By the time we arrived at Xiaocuigezhuang, we had only been riding for 1 hour and 36 minutes (“wheels turning”) and were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. We became more confident that we could make it to Pinggu City by dark.

We finally escaped the rock haulers when we turned left and headed north at Pingsan Lu (G206) between Hebei Province’s Sanhe and Beijing Municipality’s Pinggu City. There were any number of interesting things to see along this route; many people were working in their fields despite the holiday. The temple at Ling Shan stood out, but since the evening sun was getting lower in the western sky, we decided to keep moving. After crossing back into Beijing Municipality from Hebei Province, we travelled along the tree-shaded G206 leading to Pinggu Town. By this time, we’d realized we could make our destination for the day with ease.

But…since we were trying to do something unusual, we asked a local girl if there was a place to stay for the night; we wanted to remain in the countryside if possible. She pointed toward the Yuyan Guoji Huaxuechang, a ski resort whose barren slope could be seen about four kilometres in the distance from our location where G206 crosses the construction zone for the new Jing–Ping Expressway. We decided to give it a try, but after a hard climb that took most of the rest of the energy stored in our tired legs and weary buttocks, the guards told us the resort was undergoing renovation…there was no room at the inn.

The upside of this experience was that it was mostly downhill getting back to the main road and mostly flat heading into Pinggu City on a small road off G206 where we were guided by road signs. But the diversion also meant we could take no more chances. We were tired and needed to find a place to stay. Because it was the first day of a national holiday, we were a little apprehensive, but we finally found a room at the Yuyang Hotel in Pinggu where, after some haggling, they allowed us to store our bikes in our room, instead of in the wide open parking lot outside. Our total travel time for the 62-kilometre jaunt from Songzhuang to the hotel was 6 hours and 15 minutes, but with only 3 hours and 45 minutes of actual riding. The balance of time was spent dawdling, asking for directions, eating lunch and stopping to take photos. I felt pretty good about the ride, but was in no condition for further sightseeing that evening. We ate barbecue on the hotel’s grounds.

We slept well until a car alarm that wouldn’t cease woke us up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. After a boiled egg and Coca-Cola breakfast and stopping to view a wedding procession, we finally headed eastward on G314.

I have read some fairly dismal reports about Pinggu over the years, so I was surprised to find the town, as elsewhere in Beijing Municipality, rapidly developing. At a glance you could see that just about anything you might desire and find in Beijing was available in Pinggu too, including ubiquitous new and modern high-rise apartment buildings that could be seen from miles away. Many of its streets were tree-lined and the medians had flowers, trees and other plants. There were mountains visible in the distance on a mostly clear day. The shops selling all types of electrically powered vehicles seemed especially busy as we entered the city, but east of the city, the focus was on all kinds of fruit trees, including persimmon, apple, pear and peach trees, which should be ready for tourists to self-pick by the time this story is published, along with grapes from the area’s vineyards. There were also a lot of shops dealing in stone art.

We pedalled. The countryside along the road from Pinggu City to the resort at Jinhaihu is of rolling hills and mountains. To the north and east, large mountains loom. This was of some concern, because our buttocks were sore from the previous day’s ride, but the road’s bicycle lane was excellent and the inclines weren’t very steep. Because of various uncertainties, we couldn't stop at every interesting thing we saw along the way, but there were many things of interest that we could see along the roadside and in the distance, not the least of which was the Jinhaihu resort, where we made a second big energy-draining mistake.

It seems we’d missed the turnoff from the main highway that leads northward to Jiangjunguan, and it never occurred to us that we should have gone around a barrier that blocked a shortcut to that road, just below a tall hill at Jinhaihu. When we got to the top of the hill, we got to see the lake there, but we also learned we’d missed our turn. Fortunately, from that elevation, the correct route was easily pointed out by a kind attendant at the jammed Jinhaihu parking lot.

On the road to Jiangjunguan, Rocky and I got a little more of what we’d been looking for. The two-lane blacktop up the mountain was as smooth as glass and the bicycle lane was more spacious than necessary as we passed through villages like Kaoshanji. The traffic was mostly local and very light: small vans, motorcycles and typical farm vehicles. The villages were small and the people welcoming. There was no transition to a dreaded “tourist zone.” The people, however, could not fathom why two guys from the city would ride bicycles to their town when the bus service to it was excellent.

As the afternoon progressed, we came to the stunningly new Jiangjunguan New Village and its solar-panel-topped villas. There was also a small strip mall there with a large restaurant and small shops selling daily use items.

But then came several more welcoming sights. I realized that we were near the Great Wall, and as I traced it back from where I spotted it to the north, I realized we'd been paralleling it all along. The ruins of the only part of the wall made with stone (so we were told) could be seen along undulating ridgelines.

To my front left, about halfway up the mountain, I spotted something else that pleased me, small triangular banners on lines that indicated it might be a village hotel for tourists. Passing through a serpentine just north of Jiangjunguan New Village, we came upon the old village I’d seen in the Google Earth photos. Seemingly, not much had changed. To our left and right ahead, on either side of the pass, we could see the old Great Wall snaking up and down ridgelines, perhaps without the post-card majesty of Badaling or Mutianyu, but with its own charm.

Spotting a sign, I asked Rocky, “Does that say anything about a hotel?” He assured me that it did. After a quick phone call, we headed westward, winding up a mountain that kept winding and climbing and seeming a bit taller every weary step we took. It was far too steep to ride up with our 21-speed bikes. Our gearing just wasn’t up to it; my legs only just.

After about a 30-minute climb, we found ourselves at the welcoming doors of the Jiangjunguan Family Courtyard run by Zhu Jinsheng. It was a small family run hotel perched on the side of the mountain (they still used donkeys to haul things on the steep slopes), but cars and motorcycles were also in use on the narrow trail. On one side, where we stayed for a night, there were three or four spaces with inner and outer rooms, TVs with satellite reception, a double and single bed and with a quiet air conditioner. The establishment’s kitchen and dining areas were in the middle of the single-story complex and was flanked on the east by rooms outfitted with kangs that are heated in the winter. From this lofty perch, you could view the Great Wall to the north, east and south. To the west was a towering cliff marked by trails of those who collect wood and graze animals up the mountain. On one of the beautiful peaks, someone was mining rocks and dropping them hundreds of feet to the valley below.

There were trails leading in every conceivable direction, but what caught my fancy was the yangrou (mutton) being grilled over a huge pit of coals down below. It was later served along with yecai, locally collected wild vegetables. It was a great evening, cool and with a wonderful view.

The next day, tired and sore, I slept-in as Rocky took off to climb the old wall to the east. Later in the day, we both rode down to the pass and took a look around, but I was too tired to climb. Here, there were no kitschy tourist booths, no cable cars to the top, which was very high in the sky. There were, instead, locals who seemed to appreciate those who appreciated this section of the Great Wall and who were eager to talk about its legends and lore.

For instance, as we watched someone who may be certifiably mad climbing the steep, loose face of the western side of the pass, a farmer told Rocky that that portion of the wall had been built by a widow from Henan (Rocky’s home province) who came to build the wall under a government edict and to make money. But before she began building, she swore that the wall would never collapse and that the stones she used would never lose their colour.

The legend had an effect. The old man said, “No one ever removed one stone from that wall and the stones never darkened.”

This is not true for the eastern side of the road where people have used the wall’s stones and have even built houses and water tanks on the wall, despite obvious attempts at some repairs and restoration.

I am no Great Wall expert and will leave it to others to tell the tale of Jiangjunguan, although an elderly woman told us that the area was a battleground during the War of Resistance Against Japan and the Chinese Revolution.

“Everyone fled then,” the native of nearby Liudaohe said. Only with China’s reform and opening did she get the chance to purchase the land on which her daughter and son-in-law’s hotel sits.

And only because of her could we sit on the side of a mountain in Pinggu District, amid an orchard and vineyard, surrounded by friendly people and tree-covered mountains, and in a glance view one of the newest of China’s new rural villages down below and one of the world’s oldest surviving military defensive barriers high above.