A Little Peice of Chinese Paradise

If Cindy or Catherine of the Homeland Travel forum happen to read this, we can only say THANK-YOU so much for the encouragement to visit Red Capital Ranch. The Ranch is the inspiration of a former American lawyer, who had spent 20 years practicing law in Beijing, before starting what has become a small chain of exceptionally unique boutique hotels. He has other properties in Beijing and Tibet, and I believe is working on one in Mongolia.


They combine a strong historical feel, with exceptional cuisine and a modern sensibility. At the ranch, all the staff are Tibetan, working as part of a cultural exchange. While most of the facility has been fairly recently constructed, much of the material used was salvaged from old Beijing hutongs that were recently demolished to make way for the Olympic construction frenzy. Other materials were found at antique dealers in the surrounding country side.



And the food in the restaurant was as delicious as it was unique. The chef has combined local north China and Mongolian influences with a number of Tibetan ingredients.
Here are just a few of the dishes we had. The yin and yang elements of locally growing white and black tree fungus made for a subtle earthy flavoured mushroom dish. We had a salad of parboiled willow leaves, with fresh almond meat in wonderful vinaigrette. And the highlight was fresh, raw Tibetan Yak, packed in snow and flown in, served with a crumbly Tibetan cheese, raw fresh walnuts and a garlicky soy vinaigrette. Wow! Breakfasts featured granola and Tibetan yoghurt, flavoured with a little bit of the local honey, which is wonderful – milder and less suite than our honey.

Now as good as the accommodation, grounds and food were, the highlight of the place was the location. It is nestled into a narrow valley, right at the point where the Great wall swept down one side of the valley and up the other. Climbing up from our accommodation, it was about a 10 minute climb to the first watch tower on the old wall – that is if you didn’t take a wrong turn and spend the better part of 2 hours trying to forge your way through a peach and walnut orchard that ultimately proved to provide no access to the wall, although the rocks did claim a good junk of flesh from my elbow and shin. Our advice to any future travelers is to bring sturdy footwear and get one of the staff to take you to the first Watch Tower. From there, it is impossible to loose the trail.

There is something about walking the original Great Wall that I just can’t describe, and to do it in a setting as wild and rugged as this is a blessing. Now, as much as I could go on about the old wall, the kids will kill me if I don’t describe what they considered to be the Wall highlight.

. We also went to the “restored” wall at nearby Mutianyu, although reconstructed is I suspect a more accurate description. One can ride up to the wall on a chair lift, which we did given our plans to hike the old wall later that day, and head off in either of two directions for a good half hour or more before one gets to the end of the restorations.

We counted 716 steps in on before one section alone, so all told we probably went up over 1800 steps and then back down the same number. But the absolute highlight of the Wall at Mutianyu, if you were to ask Kailyn or Ciana, is the sled slide down off the bottom. While one feel a little awkward at the overt commercialism this represents, at what should be a site celebrating 2000+ years of Chinese culture, even Mom and Dad agreed it was a fun ride down.

If you were to ask Kailyn, the other highlight was undoubtedly three of the resident dogs, and Candy, the collie pictured here was the highlight of the three. Kailyn and Candy (we believe the dog’s actual name was Chinese, but it sounded pretty close to Candy) each burnt a lot of energy off chasing each other around the property.

So in the end, we all got something we really enjoyed. Mom and Dad got to walk on the original wall, and eat some fabulous cuisine. Ciana got her slide down the Great Wall. Kailyn got her dog fix (and horses too). To quote Kailyn on our departure, “I’ve never been so sad to leave a hotel”.