Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅵ

Day9-10: July 13-14, Visiting Chengde Spots

The following two days I was wandering in Chengde, a famous tourist city in China. Now please follow our local guide, Mr An.

In the park locates the Twin Colossals, a small hill with two huge towering rocks standing on the top.

Seeing from the hill

The mountain style of Chengde

Two natural huge rock stands there strangely. What’s more, there is a small tower on each top of the rocks. People theorize they were formed millions of years age by water force when there was once a river. But no one knows who have built the towers.

Puning Temple is the largest Buddhist temple in North China.
Locals call it “Big Buddha Temple” for the world’s largest wood thousand-hand Guanyin statue in it.

The Emperor built Puning Temple for Panchen Lama, in order to show our friendship to Tibetan.
So the temple was built in Tibetan style.

countless locks locked by countless tourists

These “Heart Locks” have no key holes. People do this to “lock their hearts with buddha” permanently

Another strange rock, even larger than Twin Colossals

The world famous Summer Resort. The word was written by Kangxi Emperor/

The hall was built with the best wood in China. Even today the wood was still perfect without any worm damaging

Summer Resort is one of the largest gardens built along the way from Beijing to Mulan Paddock (zone of Bashang and Weichang) in order to supply dining, accommodation and entertainment for the Emperor and other royal members when they went to Mulan Paddock.

the pond was full of lotus

Lake Area is the most beautiful part of Summer Resort.

with “72 spot” in the garden, Summer Resort gathered all Chinese building styles. From north to south.

Gathering all building styles in a garden stands for a minimized China, in another word, the whole China only belongs to the Emperor

Day11-12: July 15-16, Chengde-Luanping-Gubeikou-Miyun-Huairou-Beijing, 230km

It' rained in the morning. I was considering going back by automobile instead of bike. However, it was impossible to put my bike in a public vehicle. What suprised us was the day went sunny again when we had no ideas. Good, now I can go back by my bike! I had a good-bye lunch with An Bo in the restaurant we enjoy our gee feast. The tough journey connected two strangers tightly, and we are intimate friends now. Thanks for your 10 day’s company.

It’s a lonely trip without partner, but I could ride at higher speed and few rests.

5 o’click, I arrived at Jinshanling Greatwall. I intended to visit it and shot the golden sunset of Great Wall. But the ticket’s price was so high without any discount to students. Ok, go ahead, let’s see our Gubeikou Great Wall free.

Gubeikou Great Wall

Sunset

Fort of Gubeikou Great Wall. It’s aged building on the mountains without any repair because it’s free to visit

Back to Beijing

The Gubeikou Great Wall

The Memorial of Operations for Safeguarding Gubeikou.
More than 100 soldiers were killed in the battle against Kuomintang armies in Jan, 1946

Mountains of Gubeikou

I stayed in a small village, in which one of my senior, also my fellow villager, was working there. We talked a lot about travel, photography and insects. Other young people worked there also graduated from CAU and treated me friendly.

I was woke up very very early by my stupid senior the next day, also the last day of the journey. I had some breakfast in their public dining hall, pack up my load, heading Beijing. Soon I reached Miyun County, then Huairou District. I had my lunch in the “Fast Food Bar” that we patronized 11 days ago and I went back alone the same road we came from.

The Olympic old man and his son riding tricycles from Kunming to Beijing.

The distance is about 4000 km and the journey had lasted more than 2 months.

At 5:00, when my distance recorder showed 1123.3km, I stopped in my school, completed this valuable bike tour successfully!

(The End)

For my time and language limitation, I’ve left out a lot of details.
You may click here to read the full Chinese version.

More About the Trip

Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅰ
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅱ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅲ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅳ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅴ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅵ View Map1 Map2