The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was a blast of fresh air and I
recalled my visit seven years previously when I had trekked along
the Great Wall here.
I was excited to retrace my steps, this time with my wife and two
boys, and show them what I considered to be one of the finest Great
Wall desert landscapes.
The dirt track toward the Wall, from the Gobi Desert plains, was
gouged by deep, dried up watercourses, telling of ancient floods
that had swept down from the hills.
The jeep coped well with these tough conditions and with little
more than an hour's light remaining we reached our camping
site.
Things had changed a lot. The drone of machinery told of the
arrival of mining in the hills nearby. Black smoke rose in the red
sky to the west. Power lines poked through a gap in the Wall.
We were tired, had dinner and climbed into our tents. But it was
far from serene. We were woken up by occasional blasts and trucks
driving through the night.
Next morning we ascended the ramparts. We all agreed that it was
higher, wider and better preserved than we imagined it would
be.
?
But for me the view brought sharply into focus why the task of
protecting the Wall is so complex.
Firstly, the Wall conflicts with modern life; secondly, it
crosses many regional borders.
A mine has been established in the hills, 500 m to the west,
which was in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
On the other side of the Wall lay the Ningxia Hui Autonomous
Region, where the authorities in the capital just 40 km away had
pioneered protection of this historical landscape by erecting an
unobtrusive barbed wire fence.
The mine, primitive and polluting, left a scar on this
historical landscape. Another 15-ton truck thundered down the
desert road and through the Wall.
I wondered when I would return again and in what way the Wall
would be attacked then.
(China Daily December 8, 2007)
