The Olympic City - Day 3: The Greatest of Walls

Without a doubt, one thing everyone must do during their time in China is see the Great Wall. Chairman Mao said, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man." Sorry ladies, guess the ol' Chairman wasn't a big fan of gender inclusive language. However, I have to agree with his sentiment. Walking along the Great Wall is one of those indescribable moments in life, but maybe we can help you picture just a bit of its transcendence.

Our wonderful hotel set us up with a driver, Yang (yahng), to take us to the Wall. There are many different places to see the Wall in Beijing; most are at least an hour or two from the city. We decided to stay away from the most touristed area, Badaling, fearing that it would be even more crowded because of National Week. Instead, we opted for a more rugged area called Huanghua. Even driving to the Wall was an experience. Along the way we passed through quaint mountain villages, and beautiful outlooks - something to whet the appetite. Yet, even beautiful scenery gets tiresome when driving up and down curvy moutain roads after a while. Thankfully, Yang notified us that we had arrived in Huanghua. As we gazed at the terrifyingly rugged section of wall, Chinese police officers started shooing us away (but not before a few well deserved pictures). After some confusion, and a few cigarettes, our driver let us know that we couldn't climb there today, but that he would take us somewhere else. So, begrudingly, we got back into the car and faced the long and winding road to Mutianyu.

Mutianyu is more touristy than Huanghua. For example, in Mutianyu, the path leading to the Wall is lined with vendors, restaurants, and hotels. In Huanghua, there is a dilapidated building with a vicious dog chained to it. In other words, both sights have their charms. We decided to take a cable car to the top of the mountain, which turned out to be a good decision. The Wall stretches along the very top of the mountains. The hike, while not impossible, would have been long, steep, and fairly demanding. The cable car provided us with some fantastic views, and got us to the wall with fresh legs. I cannot state how important it is to have fresh legs, because, the Great Wall is rarely, if ever, flat - quite the contrary. Most sections have very steep declines and ascents; in fact, after we got out of the cable car, we were greeted by at least a dozen people with sweat-drenched shirts (though it was a mild day). As I said before, being on top of the Great Wall on a clear day in the mountains is an indescribable experience. Therefore, I'll let the pictures do most of the work:

The wall snakes along the peaks of the mountain range. Sometimes it disappears into the lush forest, but not too long before bursting out again in a steep ascent. There are no handrails to help people along the Wall, yet the Chinese elders were out in force, making their way slowly but surely. The picture above right displays the watchtowers that would house the guards. From there, they could fire outside the windows, or climb to the top and hurl objects at their enemies. Below is a shot of the scenery outside one watchtower window.

Top right, Jimbo stands next to a canon positioned to nail invading Mongolians. Below that displays how steep the wall can be. The steps are different sizes, so you always have to watch your step. One wrong step, and you could be rolling on the Great Wall for quite a while.

As you can see from the picture on the right, the Wall goes a long way. It is also on the toughest and most unforgivable of terrains. Contrary to popular belief, the Great Wall is not visible to the naked eye from space. Although the Great Wall did successfully thwart a few Mongolian invasions, Genghis soon learned that bribery was the best method of getting past the Wall. Much of the Great Wall, especially in the tourist areas, has been renovated. However there are a portions of the wall that are crumbling and being overtaken by growth, as can be seen below.

We decided to head back down the mountain and get back to Beijing. We were making our way to the chair lift when a sign caught our attention: "Great Wall Toboggan This Way." After debating whether we should do it for about, oh, seven seconds, we eagerly bought out tickets and made our way to the sleds. Maybe it was the mountain air, but I will admit to being giddy before hopping on the sled. There was one lever, pull up to brake, and more importantly, press down to accelerate. It took us over ten minutes to get up the mountain on cable car, and it took us about five minutes to get down by toboggan. Along the way, some guards would shout things like "Slow Down," "No Camera," or "Waiguo..." (Foreign something in Chinese), while the others would be reading a magazine or sleeping (I liked them better). Once we reached the bottom some "Mongolian invaders" were waiting to attack us...with requests to take a picture for only 10 kuai. Jimbo agreed, and the rest is history (look a few blogs back if you don't know the picture).

Before heading back, we decided to shop around a bit, and ended up making a lot of Chinese merchants very happy. Some treasures from the day include: A Great Wall staw hat, painting, and some sweet "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirts! On the way back we decided to stop and see the Olympic venues. Of course, the stadium was still under construction, as was just about the entire block around it. Unlike construction sites in the USA, Chinese constructions sites are pretty open and we managed to snap some pics of the Olympic stadium lovingly coined, "The Bird's Nest." After some rest, we went to find the newly opened National Theater which is one gorgeous building. It was night, so we couldn't get any good pictures of it, but its worth a Google Image search if you're not familar with it. It kind of looks like a UFO landed in this big lake in the middle of downtown Beijing. If that doesn't make you want to see it, nothing will.

We are almost at the end of our Beijing blogs, but not quite. We still have another eventful day to report, so look for that soon. Also, we are lucky enough to be going to Qufu and Tai Shan this weekend. Qufu is the home of Confucius, and Tai Shan is the holiest mountain in China; therefore, we'll be a lot wiser and a tad more holy when we return next week.

Until then,

DB & KM

One last treat. It occured to me during the tobogganing that some of our readers might enjoy this too. You've got to love modern technology (that is if this actually works). Enjoy!

I don't know why I listened to that guy.