At 9.30am on Monday morning we filled our minibus with bags and people and set off for the Great Wall of China.
The real one.
It took us just under three hours to drive there and for two of those hours we were driving out of Beijing. We weren’t stuck in traffic that much; Beijing is just really vast. Confusingly the bus driver wanted some fresh air so he opened the window; on a three lane motorway in China you find many things and fresh air is not one of them. You find people using the shoulder whenever they need to overtake, you find taxis driving along halfway between two lanes while they make their mind up about which one will be faster, and motorbikes overtaking those same taxis on either if not both sides. It’s common also to use your highbeams during the day when politely requesting that someone drive a little faster.
But hey – we got there.
It was nice and cool standing around in the shade but once we started climbing the steps up to the Wall it somehow got hotter, and up on the wall it was kind of hot.
We started on the Jinshanling section, and walked about 10km along the top into the Simatai section, then down into the valley from there. We passed through 30 towers on the way, and up and down a hell of a lot of inclines. Some where evenly paved and quite fine, some had steps which were great on the way down and not so great on the way up, some were composed mainly of potholes and loose stones which made for a fun descent. Luckily my Dunlop Volleys were more than up to the task, and I had a good time going at my own pace while further back Alice had a good time going at hers, and somewhere in front of me Mike and June – who said they liked walking and weren’t lying – could be seen in the distance and occasionally caught up to.
All along the way locals were sat down with bags offering ‘Water, Coca, Beer’ for sale. I’m not sure who would choose to combat the heat by buying beer, but then again why not? It’s your only chance to get wasted on the Great Wall. Meanwhile Alice and some of the other girls had acquired local helpers who shepherded them up the steep parts and then started to offer them souvenirs.
There were very few really steep climbs, but the climbs that were steep were absolutely brutal. You could just as easily use the steps as handholds to climb up instead of walking up.
Most of the way along, the small lead group was puzzled to come across two casual looking chaps asking for tickets to the rest of the wall. We showed them our tickets but they said that was Jinshanling ticket and now we needed a Simatai ticket. We knew that Simatai was where we were finishing but it didn’t make sense to have to buy tickets on the wall; after all we’d bought tickets down at the carpark for the previous section, and we had a guide with us. So we sat down to wait for the guide, and see what he said. Of course when he arrived, with the rest of the group, he duly paid for our tickets, and we got a nice rest break while pretending that there was no way around it and we absolutely had to stop.
Soon enough we started going back downhill into the valley, which was gorgeous, and so was the metal suspension bridge across the river at the bottom of the valley. At the end of the bridge were the ticket collectors for the steps up to the finishing point, and while we waited again for the guide we told everyone who came past and paid that it was another scam.
At the top of steps there two very important things – a stall selling ice cream and cold water, and a toilet. Having availed ourselves of both of those things, we were all set to catch the flying fox back down the valley, over the river, to our hostel. I nearly forgot my daypack but thankfully a local worked out whose it was and bought it down to us while I was still in line for the flying fox. It wasn’t actually a flying fox, sadly, more like a rolling fox. You just kind of go floating down the 400 metre-or-so cable instead of really haring down, which is what I was expecting. But you have to time stick your arms and pretend you’re the boy that can fly, as well as shouting GERONIMO at top volume.
At the bottom a lady stand next to platform and shouts ‘Hello, stand up’, but I came in too low so instead I just dropped into a graceful sitting position on step. There is even an amusing video of me doing so which people will be able to view when we get home. Or in the meantime we may attempt to post it on YouTube. (Which we have now done. And here it is.)
After the flying fox we had an incredibly short but unbelievably slow boat ride, during which I was not convinced we were actually moving. But at the end of the boat ride was the Simatai Youth Hostel, where we picked up our large backpacks and walked about 12 metres to our rooms. I think everyone was good and sick of walking, and nobody wanted to see any more steps. We sat out on the wooden terrace with beer from the bar and chatted, then disappeared in small groups for dinner. There was a rumour of hot water being available from 7pm til 9pm for showers but that rumour remains unconfirmed, so I went to bed with stinky feet, Alice looking forward to a proper night’s sleep after a cold shower, and me with the alarm set for 4am so we could be up the top of the Great Wall for sunset.
Greg
