There we were, stuck in Beijing on yet another beautiful spring day. This was pre-COVID, of course— back in an era when we wore Vogmasks solely due to pollution, and if you did happen to leave the house and get halfway down the street without one, it was your own choice whether or not to dash back home and grab it. After all, lung cancer isn’t a communicable disease, so nobody really cared if you’d go on to suffer from it decades in the future.
We were living carefree back in 2019, even if we didn’t fully realize it. And that spring, with smog at an all-time low, there were so many gorgeous days that us carnies found that we’d actually spent too much time outside. Weekend after weekend spent traipsing all over Beijing, to the point where we’d just had enough. Enough of those timeless old hutongs, the quaint wet markets, and the idyllic city parks. Even another drive out to the Great Wall didn’t seem all that desirable, since this traveling circus had already seen quite a few sections during our Middle Kingdom roadshow. In fact, out of the 13,000 or so miles of that Wall, there was only one section left on our bucket list that we hadn’t seen yet:
The End.
Laolongtou (老龙头) literally means “the old Dragon’s head”, and the name comes from how the Wall is supposed to look like a dragon drinking from the sea. I mean, I guess if you were standing on a hill and looking down at the right angle and squinting into the rising sun, then yeah, I can see it. Regardless, it did look like a pretty cool Instagram shot, and isn’t that the deciding factor for road trips? So just like that, we hit the road!
To make things even better, the trip seemed amazingly simple: a straight shot heading east from Beijing for four hours. Again, this was pre-COVID: we hit surprisingly few checkpoints, without any of the invasive medical tests required to pass between provinces today. In fact, we spotted just a single horrific traffic fatality en route, which as Chinese highways go, was a statistical anomaly. And that was how, right on schedule, we pulled into the fabulous Shangri-La Hotel and Resort, arguably the finest destination in all of Qinhuangdao (秦皇岛).
The month of April was shoulder season for beach tourism, and we’d arrived on a weekday, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. As nice as it was to have the entire place to ourselves, nearly everything along the “boardwalk” still wasn’t open. We spent the rest of that first day strolling past the shuttered aquarium, window-shopping at the padlocked souvenir stalls, and browsing menus at the restaurants under construction. There was just enough time to leave our mark in the sand…
…before heading back to the hotel for a quiet evening in. The all-you-can-eat buffet was delicious, even if the unlimited drinks were restricted to liter bottles of Harbin Ice. And the heated indoor pool was lovely, despite how the lifeguard threw requisite hairnets to us while turning a blind eye to other guests spitting in the water. All in all, though, the Shangri-La lived up to its billing. It was the perfect way to unwind after a day of travel, and when the sun came up the next morning, we were ready for an early start.
Laolongtou Park was quiet at that hour, and even though the April crowds were sure to be sparse, it was nice to have beaten them anyway. My group was first inside when the gates opened, leaving plenty of time to explore the gardens and some kind of weird labyrinth maze.
But after that, it was up the hill to the main attraction: the end of the Great Wall.
Which I’ll admit, turned out to be pretty cool. Even if it only took a half an hour to see everything, and that was walking slowly— even if the high winds were blasting fine grains of sand into our eyes the whole time— and even if the one snack vendor on the beach only served cups of instant noodles and roller hot dogs— it was a still a nice destination. The whole experience felt kind of like we were popping on in the Instagram feed of some famous influencer, but without all that pressure to like, comment and subscribe.
The trip went so well that we even decided to pop into Shanhaiguan, one of only a few large strongholds along the Great Wall, for a few more hours of cultural immersion before heading back to the big city. Again, even though all the souvenir shops nearby were still boarded up, having the restored Gate all to ourselves made it a worthwhile experience.
So assuming this global pandemic ever eases, and if for some reason you find yourself stuck out on this side of Asia with an extra day to kill, I’d highly recommend ducking over to Laolongtou. The short drive can easily be inserted into any Beijing itinerary— even with the usual traffic checkpoints—and if you’ve active on Instagram, it’ll be time well spent.