My trip to see the Great Wall was a full day trip outside the city of Beijing that took in two other sites, the Ming Tombs and Long Qing Gorge.
The road system was fairly up-to-date. The gas stations are something to see. They combine the usual amenities with a circus tent-like appearance, to attract customers, I imagine. One of the things that amused me was seeing a road sign forbidding horse and buggy traffic on certain parts of the highway.
The Ming Tomb
The Ming Tombs lie in a valley where 13 of their emperors are buried. There are also six other tombs for imperial concubines and one for the princes. On the way leading to the tombs is a stone archway, a great red gate, a stele pavilion, a sacred path flanked by stone statues of generals and ministers, and a dragon and phoenix archway. The tomb precincts are covered with ancient pines and cypresses.
The stele at the Ming Tomb
As for the Great Wall, there are three sections within range of the city that are open to tourists. The farthest afield is at a place called Jinshanling, near Gubeikou, where you have the wall more or less all to yourself.
The second site is at Mutianyu, and is rarely visited by tourists, too. It has a cable car and offers spectacular views similar to that of the most popular site, at Badaling (where our tour was scheduled to visit). Badaling has been much built up, and could be termed overly touristy. The highway makes it the most convenient site to visit.
Cable car up to the wall
There are endless pay toilets, souvenir stands, peddlers, tourist buses and a cable car, but the view from the top is striking. The wall and the strategically placed towers climb and swoop along the crests of the mountains that has to be seen to be believed.
The entrance to the stairs up to the top of the wall
It is amazing when you consider the fact that the wall was built more than 2,700 years ago, to protect Chinese territory. These walls had a total length of 50,000 kilometres, which ran across an area as large as 16 of today's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. You can see it from space.
After getting off the cable car you come down to a rest area where they sell refreshments and souveneirs before climbing up to the top
After being carried to the wall by the cable car, there is a short walk to the entrance. This is a fairly small door leading to the stairs up to the top. It's a little crowded. Once you are up top, there is a variety of places to go to take in the views.
View from the top
Getting from one place to another is the trick, though, as the wall gives new meaning to the word steep. An appreciation for what mountain goats must go through is instilled in everyone.
Care must be taken to avoid becoming part of someone's picture. The wait for the pose to be captured on film makes for a welcome break from climbing. There are towers, as I have said, but these are not accessible to the public, except to go through to the next section. You can walk back down, but there was no time allowed for our group.
One of the dams at Long Qing Gorge
Before we knew it, we were back on the bus, headed for Long Qing Gorge. It was a bit of a ways from the wall, and the group took the opportunity to commandeer the tour guide's microphone for some karaoke. Each singer introduced himself, and sang what I guessed was some traditional Korean song. They were nice enough to invite me up, and I gave them a few verses of the Beatles' "In My Life."
A typical boat - very snug!
Long Qing Gorge is the site of a lake, created by a dam, upon which "dragon boat" tours carry approxiamately 100 or so people up to a recreation facility and back. There are pretty spectacular cliffsides on view. There is also an escalator, that carries you up to the boats, built inside a giant plastic dragon (below).
This was the impression that I brought back from China with me. There was some very ancient, undeniably spectacular scenery, surrounded by the modern day trappings (both good and bad) of garish capitalism.
... that's very steep
Sometimes it was hard to appreciate what I was seeing, the tour moved so fast. But I think my background in history gave me enough insight to put things in their proper context. I hope these stories have been entertaining, informative, and shown just a little bit of what the world has to offer.
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I took this tour in October 2002, just after Korea's amazing performance in the World Cup of soccer. We heard a chant from that time, "Daehan Minguk!" from one of the other boats on the lake. The trippers in my boat were so pleased with this that they yelled it at every other boat we passed. Some of them responded, and some of them just stared back blankly.
Being part of a package tour has its advantages, in that you cram a lot of stuff into a short time. But if you're not pressed, it's better to find your own way to these places.
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