Adventure! Fedora Lounge Folks in Action!

[1mach1]

Very cool, pics, Blackthorne. Machu Picchu is on my travel short list. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Blackthorn]

My pleasure!

 

[HeyMoe]

Blackthorn,

Have any other adventures to share?


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[Blackthorn]

Blackthorn,

Have any other adventures to share?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You bet, my friend! Waiting for my wife to get off the big computer so I can post another one...

 

[Blackthorn]

A few years ago I found myself in Beijing with some free time. A friend had given me the business card of a guy who did tours of the Great Wall, but warned me that there was something odd about it. When I called the phone number the man who answered spoke excellent English, but he told me that his brother was the one who did the tours, and he spoke no English at all. Okay...that's weird for a tour guide, but we went ahead with it. There were four of us who made the reservations. We went to the street corner where we had been told to wait, and eventually a white van picked us up. There was no logo on the side of the van, and the guide just waved us in. We didn't know if this was the right guy or not, but when we said "Great Wall?" He nodded, and continued to motion us into the van. We gambled on it and got it. After driving a while he stopped at a big hotel and several Dutch tourists got in. They said they were on the way to the Wall, too, so we relaxed a bit.

We drove for a couple of hours, then turned onto a dusty dirt road, which we followed for a long way. We could see the Wall above us at the top of a mountain range. Finally the driver stopped and got out. He waved at us to follow him, then he went up a dirt path that led straight up the mountain. There was a sign that said "Great Wall Closeo."

But we followed him anyway, since he seemed to know what he was doing. I lagged behind the group, and when we got to the top, there was a make shift platform of rocks haphazardly put together (there were no stairs anywhere, not even a ladder). I didn't take a pic of it because I didn't understand what I was seeing at the time. Anyway, our intrepid guide had clambered up onto it, and from there onto a lower section of the wall. He reached down and helped me climb up and then he sat down, waving me onward and upward. This was a really interesting part of the Wall, nothing like all the photos I had seen over the years. It was in the original state, minus the erosion over the centuries. There were no tourists but us. We had the whole place to ourselves. Here's what it looked like:

there was a guard house, still intact, built into the wall:

After a couple of hours we were done, and our guide helped us each clamber down off the Wall, onto that makeshift platform of rocks. Once we were all down, he took that platform apart, throwing all the stones in different directions. I finally caught on. He was destroying the evidence that we had been there. The Great Wall was indeed "closeo" and now I understood why there was no logo on the side of the van and it was strictly cash. This guy was running an outlaw tour company. I had to say, it was a much cooler adventure than if we had gone to the touristy areas where it's all pristinely clean and rebuilt for the foreigners to come see. We were lucky enough to see the real wall, with all its history on display for us.

 

[HeyMoe]

Blackthorn,

Awesome adventure! I have to say that I too would have preferred the non-tourist section of the wall. I love the way it runs up the side of the mountain.

 

[Blackthorn]

Thank you for your kind words, HeyMoe, that wall truly IS Great.

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

Awesome Blackthorn, real Lara Croft material there , much better than being with all the tourists.

 

[Blackthorn]

Thank you, Mr Godfrey

 

[Oldsarge]

The Great Wall as we see it today, even the non-touristy part Blackthorn was able to sneak up on, is a later version. The first wasn't even 'a' great wall but a collection of walls put up by various kingdoms to act as both a barrier against the northern horse nomads and each other. They were connected together into one under Qin Xi-huangdi, the First Emperor. In the following millennia it suffered erosion, neglect, rebuilding and such until the Ming period when it was rebuilt into the form we see today. I kind of want to get there, myself, some day. More importantly I want to go to Kaifeng and eat at the Bucket Chicken House.

 

[Blackthorn]

All very true, Oldsarge.

 

[Blackthorn]

I visited Petra twice, here are some random pics from those trips:

A beautiful Muslim girl, who accepted my offer of a dollar to let me take her picture. It's bad manners to ask for their pic, unless you have showed them respect:

the color of the rock is incredible in places:

That's me in the doorway:

 

[Blackthorn]

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

Cool photos Blackthorn, any of you riding the camel?


Never managed to get to Jordan for that visit, had one planned once but something came up so its is still 'on ze list'. I also regret not riding a camel to the pyramids in Cairo once, really tourist thing but hey I wish I had done just for the hell of it, again I meant to go back but work took over the last time I was in Cairo.

 

[Blackthorn]

I'm glad you asked, Mr Godfrey.

Now, I did get a pic of me before we took off on our journey to the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the Monastery (as it's called, although it was never really a monastery). But after that, I had no one with me but the camel driver, so all subsequent shots don't show me. As you can see in these, only my camel's head was visible at the bottom of each pic, along with the camel driver leading me. I had not then mastered the selfie, sad to say.

 

[1mach1]

Great pics, Blackthorne. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Blackthorn]

Thanks, Harv!

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

Thanks Blackthorn, pretty neat set of pics and a great adventure, thanks for sharing. Darn, that two more places to add to the list! Need more time

 

[Blackthorn]

I appreciate the kind words, Mr Godfrey

 

[Renault]

Wow! Very nice Blackthorn!!!! Thanks for posting!!