Ride on
- Source: Global Times
- [23:07 November 02 2009]
- Comments
Lewis riding along the Great Wall at Shandan, Gansu. Photos: courtesy of Megan Lewis
By Gao Fumao
Long-distance horsewoman Megan Lewis has a great memory from a 'horse temple' along the Great Wall in Gansu. Coincidentally being reopened after a Cultural Revolution hiatus just as the Welsh woman and her posse pulled into town, the temple had always been associated with an equestrian holy man.
The sight of strangers from afar on horseback was too much for the gathered and startled faithful, who demanded the horses and riders be garlanded and paraded on holy ground, inside the refurbished house of prayer.
Lewis is the Welsh equestrian leading a merry band across small-town China on the Long Horse Ride: Beijing to London between the Olympics. The epic trot across Central Asia and the Caspian countries toward Eastern Europe has been subtitled the Sino-British International Friendship Ride, perhaps a nod to the help she's been getting in securing horses and passage from the Chinese Equestrian Association.
Unlucky break
Lewis has less fond memories of the ride so far. With her trusty sherpa-driver-rider Peng Wenchao crawling along behind in a four wheel drive as she trotted along roads in Inner Mongolia, coal-laden trucks tore past them, horns a-honking. Lewis was naturally terrified that the horses would bolt, into the path of four tonnes of speeding steel. "They only slow down if they want to gawk!"she remembers.
A geography teacher who retired from her London classroom to farm sheep and breed ponies in Carmarthenshire, Wales, Lewis first arrived in Beijing in 2008 to test herself with a three-week ride.
It went well enough, and Lewis garnered enough local publicity and support to pick the ride back up in April this year. That ride would take her to the end of the Great Wall. Ten days in however she fell from her horse, breaking six ribs and her collarbone. It happened just outside Guyuan in northern Hebei, seven hours drive north of Beijing.
