Shanhaiguan - A strategic pass where Great Wall reaches sea
My initial plan in 1996 had been to head straight from Beijing to Shanghai but as I sat in a small restaurant near my hotel at Beixinqiao, looking at a photograph of the Great Wall’s “Old Dragon Head” (laolongtou) I thought this is where I should start my six-week journey. In the pre-smartphone days finding accurate travel information could be difficult for solo foreign travelers. However, Beijing Railway Station had a special office for international visitors where staff members spoke English and helped me secure my ticket for Shanhaiguan. But where would I stay, again no online assistance but with a bit of local help I found myself booking into a new hotel close to the old town walls. Initially planning for two nights, I stayed six. Following a pleasant lunch, where hotel staff members helped me through the menu, I was out exploring.
Initial feeling on arrival was of a small, partly industrial city straddling the main railway and highway to northeastern China. However, passing through an arched passage in the Old Town’s brick walls I knew Shanhaiguan had been my correct decision. A stepped path wound up onto the 14 meter high, 7 meter thick walls where I stood looking over both the walled older town and the increasingly high-rise growing beyond the walls. South rose the clock tower of the railway station while to the north, across mostly flat rooftops, I raised my eyes beyond the grand gate, the ‘First Pass under Heaven’, to follow the Great Wall as it climbed up Jiaoshan Mountain. A spellbinding vista. Meanwhile, spread out below were the cardinal main streets of this square-shaped compact town criss-crossed by a maze of narrow alleys enclosed within a 4–kilometer-long city wall. Historically entered/exited via four large gates only the eastern Zhendong Gate survives. A moat parallels the wall’s south, east and northern sides. From the midpoint of the Old Town’s rises the distinctive Drum and Bell Tower.
