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.

Dunhuang, China
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
10:18 PM

Today was a travel day, but first…

Return to the Fortress at Jiayuguan

We returned this morning to the Fortress at Jiayuguan to stand at one more spot where my grandfather took an historic picture — this time the image below that appears in his 1909 book, The Great Wall of China.

While he used mules through virtually his entire walk, William Geil wrote that they used horses on the last leg of his journey from the Fortress to the Great Wall terminus at the Taolai River. He took the picture above from out behind the Fortress as he followed the Wall to its end.

Today we pretty much found the exact spot where he took that photo 118 years ago. But it seems more was at work than just our eagle eyes. Destiny and “coincidence” have seemingly been at work throughout the whole Great Wall history, and today was no exception.

It was a beautiful sunny day yesterday when we ran out of time to attempt this last rephotography. So we had to come back — and lo and behold, we were blessed this morning with an overcast sky similar to 1908, perfect to match the scene almost exactly!

The TV camera crews are all done so it was just us today: William, Qi, Tommy, David and myself. Here are a few random looks at our work:

Once finished we celebrated our success with a group photo.— check out the title image above at the very top of this post.

The “Rammed Earth” Great Wall

As I described yesterday, this western end of the Great Wall is constructed of “rammed earth,” apparently strong enough to withstand thousands of years, including the last 100 since Geil was here. There’s been some restoration, but the Wall remains fundamentally intact. This video looks at the Wall as it continues beyond the Fortress towards its final end.

Arrival in Dunhuang

After leaving the Fortress we drove 5 hours to Dunhuang, arriving around 3:00 PM. We settled into our room at the Dunhuang Hotel and rested a few hours before dinner. Tomorrow we descend into the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas.