Great Walls of China!

---

Well, what can I say - I’m no connoisseur… it’s definitely a wall and a pretty good one at that, but I don’t know that I’d go as far as saying it was ‘great’. I feel that comment is justified given that it didn’t actually achieve its main purpose, that of keeping the Mongols over their side…. now in my book that’s a non-compliance to specification. Of course it may have been that the spec. itself was inadequate, founded on inaccurate data maybe, perhaps the Mongols weren’t quite as short as the Chinese had been led to believe …

Anyway I digress and there’s a distinct risk of this blog turning out like the last miserable one I wrote about the Forbidden City….. I’m just trying to say that although it was certainly an impressive feat of engineering, they obviously had some pretty good marketing too…..

Whilst we are on the subject of ‘Wonders of the World’ there has been some recent debate about whether there should be a rethink on what objects make the grade. To this end, Google/Google Earth set up an online system allowing members of the public to nominate and vote for what gets WOTW status from a modern viewpoint. I haven’t heard much about the results other than there was one guy in the US who lay in his back garden for 3 weeks straight in an attempt to get photographed by a passing mapping satellite, after which he intended to nominate himself as a WOTW - some people have too much time on their hands…

So back to the wall, it was cold and snowy, which actually made it very picturesque, if a little treacherous in places and we walked 10km of it from Jingshanen to Simatai. The crowds of tourist we expected didn’t materialize only the 20 or so in our group that spread out over the walk. However, we were joined by a group of locals who ‘helped’ us and then hassled us with offers of T-shirts, bags and postcards.

All in all it was well worth the trip and we enjoyed it much more than the sights of Bejiing. We had the added bonus of meeting Chris and Ren, a lovely couple from the UK - Chris was so taken with the romance of it all that he proposed to Ren and they celebrated with a zip-wire ride back to the car-park, now that’s my kind of engagement!

---

Comments

[Martyn]

Lucky cat
The last picture looks quite like the lucky cat in the window of the Chinese chippy on Winter Road!