A Chinese Leon Phelps

Our Great Wall adventure was made possible by our guide, Leo, the name he chose after seeing Titanic and concluding that sharing DiCaprio’s name would be an advantage with girls. He speaks with a thick cockney accent, the result of learning English from British, Australian, and American clients, and he has mastered pick-up lines in dozens of languages. The route we took was of his own scouting, research, and design – guaranteeing the absence of other people. Leo left his home on the China-Russia border only two years ago at the age of eighteen, but he has already been featured in The Seattle Times for leading groups through the Mongolian grasslands and to hell and back on the Great Wall. His youth is belied by both the flecks of white in his hair and the maturity with which he handles clients – attending to every need be it food, hot showers, historical context, or discretely waking up laggards. He mixes well with westerners and possesses a curiosity of the broader world that prompts endless questions about politics, geography, and, of course, women. In a place where westerners are often concerned about being fleeced, our two days in Leo’s charge were worth every penny of the $100 spent.