Day 101 - Handleys on the Great Wall of China!

 Today we are off to the Great Wall of China. Well... part of it anyway! The wall is actually not one solid structure, there are in fact many walls and we are off to the (less commercial and therefore in theory less busy) Mutiyanu section some 90km north of Beijing. (There are 5 sections open to the public, 2 of which are only accessible with a day hike and an off piste over night camp!) After an early start and a series of errors on the hotel's part the  driver and tour guide arrive, collect several other guests and then promptly leave without us. David gets a  bit cross, well... quite a lot cross and eventually after several interesting exchanges with neither party giving any ground we return to our room to rethink our day, again! All after lots of huddled conversations by the staff in Mandarin in corners, sideways glances and behind hands and several telephone calls. The chap we had booked with is obviously deeply embarassed and in the end the trip costs us nothing as a new guide has been hastily arranged for us along with a private car which will arrive imminently, if we agree, by way of apology for the mix up. It is now almost 2 hours later than the planned start but we are assured that the car will speed us to the wall more quickly than the bus and at the risk of appearing churlish and ungrateful we accept. Henry, our guide, is about as eccentric as they come and entertains us all day with several history lessons, anecdotes and chingrish language skills! The journey is torturous and the traffic is horrendous and we wonder if we will even make it to the wall as we sit in gridlocked traffic 3km from the car park. At this point Nicole is losing her sense of humour and starting to get cross - China was not supposed to be like this. If Henry tells us once that we are in China at the worst possible time due to Golden Week and all the Chinese country folk are on their vacations Ma'am we must hear this  a hundred times! It doesnt help the situation as we are stuck, there is one road in and one road out... we are now forced to make a choice, stay in the car and sit out the traffic jam or schlep uphill to the ticket office in the heat of the day. All this before we have even climbed a step on the wall. Each time we are at the point of getting out of the car to make the best of a bad situation we inch forward up the road and around another corner, until eventually the car park is in sight. Henry disappears to buy the tickets and Nicole scoots off to "Subway" (Thank goodness no McDonalds here.... yet!) as we are now well past lunchtime. We had declined the local restaurant offered to us on the way by Henry offering such delights as "stir fried meat and noodles and donkey sauce". In hindsight a wise decision not because of the epicurean experience but we may never have made it onto the wall had we stopped for a meal.

 

We opt for the speedier cable car option up and down and Henry escorts us to the base of the wall proper getting quite excited that we have been "lucky enough" to travel in car 8, the same as John Major on his visit here in 1991, almost 20 years to the day. Clearly identified by the prominent signage above our seats. 

  

Again the paths and footways are jam packed with tourist "tat" and it is only when we get up the first steep set of steps onto the wall itself that the stresses seem to melt away as we survey the magnificent countryside and the utterly amazing feat of human endeavour we have come for, snaking away over the hills as far as the eye can see meeting and far exceeding all our expectations.

  

 Mercifully it seems the majority of Chinese have opted for the cheaper "skilift" sections between Tower 6 and Tower 14, so it is relatively quiet in comparison to the crowds at the bottom. We find a quiet corner and eat our picnic lunch just  enjoying the views, the amazing weather and  taking a  moment to reflect on what a truly awe inspiring place it is and the fact that we are even there. Yet again we are somewhere very special, as this journey progresses we are becoming more and  more conscious that we are doing unbelieveable things and taking it all in our stride and only with hindsight are we able to truly appreciate the wonders that we are seeing. 

We start our walk at Tower 14 and have 2 hours before our rendezvous with Henry back at the cable car station to make it to Tower 23 and back. This is as far as the public are allowed to venture.The brainchild of the first leader of China, Qin (Chin) who united the 9 small kingdoms in the area and named himself Emperor and Xi an the first capital. The wall initially originally built to defend against the Mongols, but later the Hans and even the Turks.  Each emperor that followed started their own wall building program but none evr lasted more than 25 years - either the rule was so strong that extra fortification was unnecessary or so weak that the wall was irrelevant anyway. The sections, now in varying states of repair, stretch over 8800km from the Gobi desert ( the bit you can see from space) all the way to the sea. It is also said to be the worlds largest graveyard.

None of us had ever really considered  what the walk on the wall would be like. Varying from 12 to 15 feet across with castle like crenallations along the top, arched windows and arrow slits on both sides. It is far from a flat surface, gently sloping to the left and right, mostly cobbled and uneven to walk on. Add to that the steps which dont rise or fall at regualar intervals and are unevenly spaced. Also the wall itself follows exactly the contours of the land it sits on and so it also rises and falls in front of us like a series of humpback bridges we must cross to get to the next tower and lookout point.  Along the way are curious steps down to archways leading to the hillside below and another set of stairs up again. On one side of the wall, China, the other side Mongolia. 

Amazingly, even on the top of the Great Wall, there are occasional hawkers and vendors selling cold drinks, snacks and Great Wall souvenirs/tat from time to time... not sure how they got there but the authorities seem to turn a blind eye and their private enterprise  is allowed to continue. One chap obviously using donkey power to trek up the hill side with his wares.  Sadly, even at the furthest reaches of the last tower, there is a flipping tatmobile and several cctv cameras watching our every move. However we manage to block these distractions out and focus on the magnitude of the wall. As we progress towards Tower 23 the views from each tower and section get better and better. Some we are allowed to climb and some stairways have been bricked up.  

 

Finally, we reach Tower 22 and the last section, we have seen this last stretch looming up in the distance in what looked like an almost vertical ascent. We were almost mistaken... but after gritting our teeth and the final assault on the very uneven 452 or so steps up with a few stops along the way we are successful!

 

Yay! What a feeling! What a place! What a reward for our efforts! Total exhilaration!
And then we had to go back down again!

We are also growing increasingly frustrated with the Chinese and their obsession with the surruptious photographing with cameras and on phones and touching of our children. On our way back down we opt for reverse tactics which is to photograph them photographing us which, interestingly, they dont seem to like. We also perfect our best Mandarin not sure of the spelling but pronounced "Bay Pon!" or "Don't Touch!" Mild mannered David in particular is getting cheesed off with various individuals and at one point he threatens loudly to "break your camera!" if one very persistent and brazen chap doesnt stop photographing!  

Fortunately we make it back to the cable car station at Tower 14 unscathed and join the perennial queue to travel back down amusing ourselves reading the hilarious Chingrish translations, instructions and signage. Almost unbelievably we travel down in the same "lucky" Car 8, (Henry almost falls over when we tell him)

 but manage to avoid the extremely random photo opportunity with a scabby looking camel at the bottom, complete with sign stating "Photos with this camel are NOT free!" but we took one anyway!
 

Tired, but so pleased we made it, we begin the long and traffic ridden journey back to the city. What a day!