Measuring up to Gansu's Great Wall

With 3,717 kms on the clock we entered Gansu, the eighth and final province of our jeep safari along the Wall.

Since leaving Beijing three weeks earlier, we had played a guessing game on the eventual distance we would cover. That figure would be revealed in the next 10 days or so, but according to Liu Yehai, a survey leader from the Gansu Administration of Cutural Heritage, the Wall's actual length would remain unknown for much longer.

I met Liu and his team in a village beside the Wall in Yongchang county, as they ended another day's work, measuring the Wall. Carrying GPS handsets, they were walking its remains as part of the national survey launched under the auspices of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.