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Lost in Beijing, 73-year-old man decides to walk 1,500km home

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A 73-year-old Chinese tourist got lost in the Forbidden City of Beijing - and decided to walk back to his home in Zhejiang Province, some 1,500km away.

That is like walking 50 times from the eastern tip of Singapore to the western-most end.

The man, with the surname Yu, had been visiting the Palace Museum on Oct 13 with his tour group of pensioners from his home province, as reported by Wenzhou Metropolis Daily.

They were walking inside the crowded museum when he was separated from the group.

He had no mobile phone or identity card on him and could not remember anyone's contact number.

Mr Yu also had difficulty reading and writing and only spoke a dialect specific to his home in remote Rui'an county.

China Daily reported that he had tried to approach "men in uniforms' but they could not understand him.

A stranger had found him wandering in Tianjin with severely blistered feet and brought him to the police station. The police contacted his family and arranged for him to get home safely.

According to the Shanghaiist, Mr Yu had walked for six days straight, covering more than 100km, before being discovered in Tianjin.

He had little pocket money and used the sun to navigate his way home, sleeping on the road side whenever he got tired.

When he first went missing, the travel agency alerted Mr Yu's family but efforts to find him were to no avail, according to South China Morning Post.

The Palace Museum reportedly attracts more than 14 million visitors annually.

Sources: China Daily, Shanghaiist, South China Morning Post, China National Tourist

 

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