I’m visiting the William Lindesay family in China for two weeks as they take me to points all along the entire Great Wall. You can read the backstory at my website or here on my blog along with all my posts while in China.

Jiayuguan, China
Monday, September 21, 2026
10:40 PM
Updated 9/22/26

Today was a travel day. We left Tangzigou at 7:00 AM, flying to Jiayuguan in Gansu Province where we will visit the western terminus of the Great Wall.

Our flight departed from the Beijing Daxing International Airport for our first of two flights. Opened in 2019, Daxing International is quite impressive!

We landed in Lanzhou for about an hour layover, then flew the final 90 minutes to Jiayuguan.

The snow-capped Qilian Mountains visible flying into Jiayuguan were stunning. Check out the title image at the top of this post, taken as we flew over.

After settling into our hotel we had dinner with William, Qi and Tommy.

Immediately upon returning to the hotel, there was a brief impromptu gift ceremony in the hotel lobby. As Geil’s grandson I was presented with a large print and book of photographs of the Great Wall. The photographer is WangJin, a friend of William’s.

I could get spoiled by all this attention but, alas, the mundane details of life are bringing me down to earth.

David and I need to do laundry in self-serve machines at the hotel. Except we can’t read the instructions or settings, all in Chinese. I’ll report our victory or defeat.

Addendum. The laundry was a “victory” of sorts, but took till 2:00 AM.