Around Dandong

2009 09 16 – Day 82 – Dandong

After a comfortable overnight train from Chengde, I arrived in the industrial city of Dandong which sits on the Yalu River that defines the border with North Korea.
The sun seemed to be fighting a losing battle with the smog.

Not particularly keen to spend more than the one night necessary to see all there was to see, I managed to buy a train ticket away for the next evening and then set about finding a place to stay. Happily, that didn't prove too difficult, as Lonely Planet's information proved accurate.
It was quickly becoming clear that Dandong was far less prepared for international travellers than Beijing or a more obvious tourist destination like Chengde. This was emphasised when, as I was heading out to explore, I accidentally broke my key in the lock of the door to my room! I found a cleaner and showed them the problem, neither of us understanding a word the other was saying. After that, all I could do was wait as a succession of people came to try their hand at fixing the problem. Had I been in an English speaking hotel, I would have felt comfortable leaving them to fix the door while I went out, but limited by our mutual lack of language, I wanted to do more to be sure my stuff was secure. Eventually, thankfully, the bit of key was extracted and I was able to move my stuff to a different room and head out to explore. The staff were very pleasant throughout the whole incident. I had worried there would be shouting and finger pointing and demands of money, but there was none of that and they even returned my full deposit when I checked out the next day.
Despite the setback in time and the blanket of smog enveloping the city, there was still light enough to explore:

The Yalu River side

The North Korean side of the river is visible in the background. There is supposedly a city on the other side, but the horizon was mostly a tree line, with the occasional building just about discernible. Maybe on a clear day there are more buildings visible... if they have clear days.

This a tourism jetty. You can take tours along the river and close to the North Korean side. I gave it a miss.
Behind are the two bridges on the river. One of the bridges only extends part way into the river as it was not repaired after the Korean War. The complete, China-North Korea Friendship Bridge, carries rail and road traffic between the two countries. I saw plenty of trucks crossing from China into North Korea, but no other type of vehicle and nothing coming back the other way.

The next day, I got a few other views of the city

Above are some of the few older buildings in the central area, before Dandong, like most Chinese cities it seems, became more vertically inclined.

There is quite a Korean feeling about parts of the centre and certainly plenty of Korean influence in the places to eat.
Some shops more obviously welcomed Koreans than others.