The original Wall to Keep Out Undesirables is now a major tourist attraction, restored in several places. Its original spirit may be preserved in the anti-Palestinian wall and the Mexican border wall, but the Great Wall of China is a declared monument to world understanding. The section we visited, a hour-and-a-half outside of Beijing, is called Mutianyu and is considered part of Greater Beijing. We hired a driver and car from the hotel, who drove us there, gave us three hours, and drove us back, starting at 8 am. We initially wondered if three hours would be enough, but we were so exhausted in that amount of time, that it was perfect.
What we hadn't imagined is that the wall runs along a mountain top, and a rather sinuous one at that. Of course! It was a fortified crest of a series of mountains about two days journey by foot, north of the capital, and it is everything we ever imagined it to be. First of all, you have to take a cable car from the parking area to reach it. This was furnished by a German firm, who also did the restoration, and it places you on the mountain top. From here you see the classic Great Wall panorama, as the crenellation hugs the undulating crests in both directions.
"Broad enough to drive a car through," yes, except that it's by no means one continuous flat surface. The gradients are often too steep for a ramp, so there are many sections with stone stairs. At the very end of the western trek, in fact, there are 454 steep steps up to a terrace, where a merchant is perched, selling refreshments and souvenirs. If you're not in shape for this, you will ache the next day, as I did. Her approach is to celebrate the accomplishment of your arrival. She offers you a cushion under her umbrella and to take your picture with your camera, so it's hard not to buy something from her ("I walked two miles," she reminds you). I bought a Great Wall refrigerator magnet for 45 yuan, which sold down near the parking lot for about a third of that, but I don't begrudge her the sweat premium. Of course, I took her photo.
The bricks and mortar reek with history. You occasionally get views of the brickwork down the side of the wall, which I find fascinating and absolutely particular to this wall. In certain places you can climb down and out a door and be at the foot of the wall, with the mountain woods at your back and the oversized bricks right at hand. Flowers grow in the cracks between the bricks and at the edge of the floor surface.
Every few hundred yards there's an stone enclosure, presumably for the garrison to sleep. These have a number of open chambers, fireplaces, but no amenities other than shelter from rain and look very much like sections from castles. The light entering them from the window and door openings and falling on their rounded surfaces gave them a wonderful three-dimensionality in photographs.
The international crowd there was in high spirits. Everyone seemed so happy to have finally arrived at a place they'd known about since childhood that we connected freely and joyously, taking photos for each other and learning about each others' travels. Towards the end of my time there, a large school group from Hong Kong appeared, all wearing turquoise hats and looking like an invasion of alien midgets.
I was ready to return at the appointed time. I took the cable car back down and proceeded through the gauntlet of merchants trying to sell me little jars with genre paintings inside (a crane, a panda, the Wall), or a brass plate with my name on it commemorating my reaching the Wall, or silks, or wall replicas of all kinds, or...a beautiful silk bathrobe that I bargained the merchant down to 300 yuan ($48) for; and sellers of the most equisite dried fruit--I had to buy 80 yuan (ca. $12) worth of this delicious stuff, which included fruits I had never seen before.
Obama as an officer in the Red Army.
We were back in town by 3 pm, and I dashed back into the Forbidden City to see the clock museum I had skipped the previous day (see that entry). Very much worth it.
What we hadn't imagined is that the wall runs along a mountain top, and a rather sinuous one at that. Of course! It was a fortified crest of a series of mountains about two days journey by foot, north of the capital, and it is everything we ever imagined it to be. First of all, you have to take a cable car from the parking area to reach it. This was furnished by a German firm, who also did the restoration, and it places you on the mountain top. From here you see the classic Great Wall panorama, as the crenellation hugs the undulating crests in both directions.
"Broad enough to drive a car through," yes, except that it's by no means one continuous flat surface. The gradients are often too steep for a ramp, so there are many sections with stone stairs. At the very end of the western trek, in fact, there are 454 steep steps up to a terrace, where a merchant is perched, selling refreshments and souvenirs. If you're not in shape for this, you will ache the next day, as I did. Her approach is to celebrate the accomplishment of your arrival. She offers you a cushion under her umbrella and to take your picture with your camera, so it's hard not to buy something from her ("I walked two miles," she reminds you). I bought a Great Wall refrigerator magnet for 45 yuan, which sold down near the parking lot for about a third of that, but I don't begrudge her the sweat premium. Of course, I took her photo.
The bricks and mortar reek with history. You occasionally get views of the brickwork down the side of the wall, which I find fascinating and absolutely particular to this wall. In certain places you can climb down and out a door and be at the foot of the wall, with the mountain woods at your back and the oversized bricks right at hand. Flowers grow in the cracks between the bricks and at the edge of the floor surface.
Every few hundred yards there's an stone enclosure, presumably for the garrison to sleep. These have a number of open chambers, fireplaces, but no amenities other than shelter from rain and look very much like sections from castles. The light entering them from the window and door openings and falling on their rounded surfaces gave them a wonderful three-dimensionality in photographs.
The international crowd there was in high spirits. Everyone seemed so happy to have finally arrived at a place they'd known about since childhood that we connected freely and joyously, taking photos for each other and learning about each others' travels. Towards the end of my time there, a large school group from Hong Kong appeared, all wearing turquoise hats and looking like an invasion of alien midgets.
I was ready to return at the appointed time. I took the cable car back down and proceeded through the gauntlet of merchants trying to sell me little jars with genre paintings inside (a crane, a panda, the Wall), or a brass plate with my name on it commemorating my reaching the Wall, or silks, or wall replicas of all kinds, or...a beautiful silk bathrobe that I bargained the merchant down to 300 yuan ($48) for; and sellers of the most equisite dried fruit--I had to buy 80 yuan (ca. $12) worth of this delicious stuff, which included fruits I had never seen before.
Obama as an officer in the Red Army.
We were back in town by 3 pm, and I dashed back into the Forbidden City to see the clock museum I had skipped the previous day (see that entry). Very much worth it.
Aha, Obama's a Communist after all -- and white... Glad to hear the Wall is as impressive as its reputation, and not ruined by tourism.
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