Peking to Paris “D-Day” – Peking to Daihai 380Km

Got up early to leave for the 8 o’clock start at the Great Wall Of China, about 60Km away. We soon realised we were overloaded and decided we would get rid of some stuff when we got to the great wall.

Despite the early rise traffic was intense and at certain moments the motorway turned into a parking lot. As a result some cars arrived late but the organisers were sensible enough to postpone the start by 1h. Further changes to the route resulted in the cancellation of the only timed section.

After getting rid of enough stuff to fill a suitcase we kicked off in the middle of a huge crowd.

The route was uneventful at first other than for the need to be flexible on the road rules. It so happens that vehicles are totally indifferent as which side the will overtake you and of often also chose the emergency lane. After a long stretch of motorway we moved on to country lanes passing by some old stretches of the Great Wall. The villages were quite primitive compared to the larger towns and the people living in them far less well off. Our passage seems to attract a lot of attention and good will. Everybody smiles, waves, yells, honks, takes pictures, sometimes even returning after having overtaken us.

We realised that together with all the stuff we had junked our food for the day. We resisted until about 3pm with some energy bars but finally stopped at pastry shop where we purchased a corn bun (which was good) and something that looked liked a glazed scone (which was awful). Restarting was a bit of a problem because we were surrounded by the whole village curious to see two westerners in a strange car and created a massive traffic jam.

Parts of the country were very interesting particularly the topography with the land constantly crossed by rifts even in cultivated areas. We climbed to over 1,200m and finally reached our hotel in Daihai late in the afternoon with plenty of time to service the car.