Day 3 to: Zhangbei, 60km, 281km to date, 980m up, end elev 1423m

I am having internet connection problems, so this post will be a bit messed up and missing stuff - I'll see if I can fix tomorrow.

The meal we had last night was probably the best meal I have eaten in China, that is saying something since the standard seems very high.  Afterwards we wandered a bit, at the end of the street beside our hotel seemed to be a combination disco/red light/gay gathering/general party place.  We didn’t stay long.

Today was the first of 6 riding days in a row (prep the Camel butter/butt grease).

Just at the start of the day we stopped at the Dajing Gate, a gate in the Great Wall of China, this gate was effectively the gateway to Inner Mongolia.

(Cut from Wikipedia)

      Among all the sections, the Dajing Gate is the most famous and best-preserved. The four characters 'Da Hao He Shan' (Grand 

     Mountains and Rivers).  The gate used to be the boundary line dividing the Han people in the Central Plain and the nomad tribes

     of the frontier areas in the Quing Dynasty (1644 - 1911).

    The Great Wall is a grand military defense line in ancient times, whose construction work had been implemented in many 

    dynasties. Due to the strategic location, nearly all of the dynasties took the area as a vital military stronghold and built the 

    Great Wall there, measuring 1,121 miles (1,804 km) in total and occupying two thirds of the whole length in Hebei Province.

    It is the most overlapped section. Many parts were built on the foundation of the older sections from the previous dynasties. 

    Some parts in the Batou area, for example, consist of multiple layers built over five dynasties.

The major part of the ride today was a very rough hard climb.  

At the ridge at the top of the climb was a major wind farm, the turbines stretched as far as one could see.  The wind farm feeds a large energy storage complex, the largest in the world I was told.

The town/city we are in tonight appears to have been recently built, is still being built.  I have seen that elsewhere in China - the master planners decide that a city should be built here - so it is, all in one go.  I’m convinced they have standard plans for a city of 3 million.

For the Chinese the number 8 very very good, lucky.  So, take a guess at the Wifi password for the hotel…   Yes, 88888888 i.e. 8 eights.

Whilst I am writing this, there are fireworks in the background - a very common thing, at weddings, at the completion of a stage in a construction project, just for the 'ell of it, etc.,

Also, there is always someone singing, right now it is on the street outside the hotel, almost always in any city square.

A typical lunch stop