A week ago I heard that there was a great wall near Chengdu – it wasn’t explained as a great wall in english, but by the name of the great wall in Chinese, which was peculiar. An hour-long bus ride out of the city revealed the city of Luodai, providing the backdrop for the wall, and a refuge of the “Hakka” minority people.

I noticed they were difficult to understand when I was there, but afterwards learned that it’s because they speak Hakka dialect, not really normal mandarin or even Chengdu dialect. The towns walking district was filled with people, buying and selling, and riding bikes along the cobblestone road below the ancient architecture lining the street. The throughfare was beautiful and led straight to the wall, which, while obviously not as long, seemed to be about the same height off the ground as the real wall which is very high. At the top of the hill was a small Buddhist temple, and after checking that out, I started the path back to Chengdu.