Day 13: The Great Wall of China

This morning I awoke to the sound of Greg’s blaring alarm.  He, of course, was already awake and chugging away at work emails.  I had to get up so we could get out and on the road to the Great Wall.  After breakfast, we headed down to the lobby and met up with Daphne, our guide.  We got in the car and headed towards the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, about an hour north of Beijing.  Along the way, Daphne told us about many of the differences between the US and China.  For example, she went to High School from 5:30am until 10:30pm, with between 30 minutes and two hours of rest in the middle of the day.

We arrived at the bottom of the mountain near the wall, and headed towards it.  There were tons of tourists in the market, so I was worried that the wall itself would be even more packed.  To get to the wall, a chair lift has been erected, so hour-long hikes are no longer required.  We got tickets and headed up.  I was pleasantly surprised by the wall, as it was not very crowded, even around the lift.

The wall snakes along a ridge in the mountains, meaning that it goes way up and down as you go along it.  We turned off to the right to walk away from what crowd was there, and were immediately climbing down a flight of stairs.  Soon, we reached the bottom and immediately the ridge climbed up again, so we did as well.  Every so often there are watchtowers or other builds, and we would stop at these and rest or take photos.  On some, you could climb to the top and look out over the beautiful mountains and scenery, where you could see the wall continuing for miles, even along ridges far in the distance.

The Great Wall went on as far as you could see.

On top of a watchtower.

The entire wall is about 10,000km long, or more than 6,000mi, though it was built in sections by different rulers, so it is not one continuous wall.  After many steps of varying size and angle, we finally reached the final watchtower, where there were great views of the rest of the wall, and few tourists, thanks to the super steep stairway leading up to it.  This section of the wall was renovated in 1983, so that watchtower was “final” in that it was the last one to be renovated.  The wall continued far beyond that point, but it had not been renovated since the 17th century.

We climbed these stairs.

Despite the “No tourists beyond the point” at the watchtower, we decided to follow other tourists along a well-marked path a bit further–the top of the wall at this point was covered in vegetation, and the floor now consisted of dirt.  It did not take us much longer to reach a collapsed watchtower, which we climbed up on.  This watchtower gave the best views of all, and it was quite interesting to see the state of the wall when left to nature.

On the collapsed watchtower.

An overgrown portion of the wall.

Overlooking the wall.

Someone planted a Chinese flag on the collapsed watchtower.

At that point, we headed back to the starting point, and got off the wall via alpine slide, which would have been very fast and fun if not for the slow bumpkins in front of us.  We had lunch at the Subway at the base of the wall–yes, they have Subway at the base of the Great Wall–and then headed back for Beijing.

Before going back to our hotel, we also visited the Lama Temple in Beijing.  This temple was built for Lamaism, and had a distinct Chinese feel to it.  There were several buildings, but inside the largest was a giant sculpture of Budda, around 15ft wide and 40ft tall, all carved from a single tree trunk.  I did not realize trees grew to be so big.

A lion at the Lama Temple.

One of the temple buildings.

We also needed to get laundry done, as I am on day 13, with only eight sets of clothes packed, and having only done minimal laundry thus far.  Daphne helped us find a laundry service for much cheaper than our hotel.  When we arrived, we found the shop to be about the size of a standard half bathroom, with no washing machine.  The owner spoke no English, so Daphne had to speak to her and explain everything.  We had her come to the hotel a bit later, where we gave her our laundry, and had some notes written down, but could do no speaking.  I hope my laundry comes back in a few days!