Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: World walk blog China 6
To: Tony <theworldjog@gmail.com>
Cc: tony_mangan@hotmail.com, myworldwalk2016@gmail.com


Saturday morning I hit the road and was surprised that there had been some overnight snow. By the time I got going at 11:30 it was slushy. As we would say I'm Ireland it was a dirty day. Smog pollution (from factories)on the road had cars driving with their headlights on. I read that an enterprising Indian company has manage to capture factory pollution waste and turn it into a useful chemical. Of course the bonus being no pollution. The same report said that this is only about 7% of envoiremental pollution worldwide.
I walked 28 kilometres non stop until darkness and took a break at a well placed cafe. On the way I passed barren fields and frozen lakes. I have been told that very little commercial fertiliser is used. It's mostly from animal dung. Human waste is also used, perhaps it's collected from sewer systems and spread on fields. Walking past some of these fields and even some city parks I have got the stench! It can take a year for the toxins to break down, so I have to bear this in mind when looking for camping places.
At the cafe I was given a great reception and even asked the nice lady if she wanted to walk to Vietnam with me! It doesn't have the same ring as 'walk to Mongolia ' which was a long running joke way back in Russia! She would have been welcome to walk further, even as far as Australia; but I didn't want to chance ' do you want to go down under ' in Google Translate :) However, her husband took the fun in his stride 😀
Another 12k were walked as far as a large town called Qiaian. As there  was no sign of a hotel and at the end of the town I got to a construction site which had a half constructed house. That did nicely. I spread out my foam mat, air mattress and sleeping bag. I never worry about being caught by workers. And I was for they were so surprised when they arrived this morning that they forgot to greet me! A few doors down I was looking for a cafe for breakfast and received more funny looks as though I was a beggar going from door to door looking for alms! I couldn't find a cafe and ended up in a petrol station where I had a noodle, cake and biscuit breakfast. Many people carry around semi-insulated water bottles which they add some tea leaves and hot water to. Note my Irish tea bags in the zip lock bag in the photo foreground ( I could only post them in comments) Ah! yes I imported  tea to China! Gotta walk! Thanks so much to Brenda Cranswick for sponsoring a day on the road via clicking on the link on


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