The Great Wall of China

Our tour guide, John, is a "temple junky" and wanted to take us to a part of the Great Wall that is less traveled and has not been restored. He wanted to avoid "The Great Mall of China" -- where you can take a cable car up to the wall and walk on brick layed in 1989. So, a small bus picked up our group bright and early on Tuesday morning for a 3 hr drive for a 10 km hike on the Great Wall from Jingshanling to Simatai.

The traffic out of Beijing was more of a slow moving parking lot, so we didn't get to the wall until after noon. There were just a handful of other tourists in addition to our group of 9. There were some farmers waiting for us near the entrance -- they act as unofficial local tour guides of sorts. They follow the tourists and help them climb the steep parts of the wall, and they also point out a 80 year old brick versus a 430 year old one, all in the hopes that you will purchase a drink or some souvenirs from them. Although their constant interference was somtimes unnecessary, they were mostly friendly. One farmer befriended Eric instantly and stuck with him -- he was very nice and tried to answer our questions and we greatly appreciated his efforts.

We were winded by the time we walked the uphill pathway just to get to the wall. Yikes -- only 10 km more to go! But when we reached the Great Wall and looked up and all around us, it was breathtaking. No other cliche could adequately describe it. Seeing the wall for the first time from the horizon was magnificant, but standing on the Great Wall and seeing how it hugs the curves of the mountains for miles and miles, it is easy to understand why it is one the the seven man-made wonders of the world, but you can't help but wonder how the Chinese managed to pull this off and what the f--- were they thinking?

The wall consists of towers connected by "straight" sections. The stretch of wall from Jingshanling to Simatai has about 33 towers. The first few sections had been rebuilt and looked like the stereotypical Great Wall postcards. However, they became increasingly less restored and soon we found ourselves walking on ruins. This is what made the experience even more amazing -- to be able to see the different stages of the wall being built across three dynasties. At this point, the wall looked nothing like the postcards. Sometimes all we had to walk on was a 2ft wide ledge. Sometimes the stairs were just a large pile of bricks in dissarray. Sometimes, there were no "sides" to the wall and you had to be careful not to get too close to the edge to a very steep and mountainous drop. If this wall were in Canada, you'd see CAUTION! signs everywhere and there would be guard rails and safety nets all around. It was strangely very refreshing to see that there was none of this at the Great Wall. Be careful and fend for yourself.

Each section of the wall was different since each had to be engineered to account for the way the mountain was shaped. Some sections required climbing or descending about one hundred 1ft deep by 2.5ft high stairs. Our quads were sore pretty fast and it was quite a work out! Ten kilometres didn't seem so daunting until we realized it required a lot of steep climbing and treacherous maneouvering. It was crazy to picture the soldiers back in the day waiting on the wall for the Mongolians to attack. Sometimes, you can see bricks of the wall with Chinese characters on them. The farmer told us that the soldiers carved their names into the bricks -- what else was there to do when waiting?

It was an absolutely wonderful experience, even though we are still sore from the climb 2 days later. It's too bad the pictures and video clips we took could never do the Great Wall of China justice.