The Great Wall

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“He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man”
Mao Zedong


So to prove that we are both man enough (G being an honorary chap for this occasion). We set out to see the Great Wall of China. We made the decision to travel 110km out of Beijing towards Jinshanling which is a quieter, less touristy section of the wall. Rather than go for a couple of hours during the day we decided to spend the night in Simatai. We planned to travel from Beijing to Simatai, hopefully get a bed for the evening, dump our stuff, then get a taxi to Jinshanling and walk back on the Great Wall.

The original sections of the wall were built around 2000 years ago, by the Qin dynasty under Emperor Qin Shi Huang. His vicious army defeated tribe in all corners of China and was the first to unite the whole of china - he is also responsible for the creation of the Terracotta Warriors. The wall was joined in later years as different sections were built to keep out the neighbouring savages - namely the Mongols under the brutal leadership of Genghis Khan, although this never really worked! The wall was primarily built by a labour force numbering hundreds of thousands of men and is a grave site to thousands of the prisoners used to build it.

We set out early (thankfully Leo hostel will store your luggage for free while you are away) to get the ‘tube’ from Qianmen station and alight at Dongzhimen station (cost 2 Yuan Per person) - where there is a long distance bus station. Once you clamber up the stairs to the bus transfer hall, you want bus 980 get on the express bus as there are two. Once abroad you pay the woman (14 Yuan per person) and you alight at Miyun bus station - this is end of the line so don’t get off until you arrive here - half way through your bus journey people will board the bus trying to get you into their minivans saying that this is where you get off to go to the wall, ignore these and they will get off (unless you want to get off but it costs more from here). On arrival at the bus station, you will be offered taxi’s etc for prices ranging up to 260 Yuan, if you walk outside the station and across the road you can buy a seat in a minivan for between 20 -30 Yuan. This will drop you off at the Simatai Great Wall entrance, once here we were greeted by many offers of rooms - we decided on the guesthouse at 90 Yuan per dorm bed - a tad expensive I know but you have the a great view of the wall.

After a yummy lunch with the wall towering over us, we jumped into a taxi (100 Yuan between 4) and set off to Jinshanling, we got the cable car up the side of the hill to the wall as we were pushed for time, starting our walk at 16:00!!! My word it was high, T was on the verge of having an accident in his pants as the cable car dropped and spluttered its way up the rather high hill and then once past the trees part there was a massive drop below - The look on T’s face was a picture, he really enjoyed this part! Once up on top of the hill you are faced with one of the most spectacular sights we have ever witnessed - The Great Wall of China, stretching out into the distance, the various hills and mountains and the mist that hangs over in that eerie manner as it so often does. We walked the few hundred metres towards the wall and then upon reaching it we took a left for the 10km hike to Simatai - a ‘wrong’ right and we would have been miles away!!!!!!

We were now standing on the Great Wall of China and to quote a past US President Richard Nixon:
“I think you would have to conclude that this is a great wall."

And it is, it is huge, just balancing on the tips of the mountains stretching out for miles into the distance, further than you could see. After a massive photo shooting moment we finally made our way along.
A misconception of the wall is that you can see it from space, when a Chinese astronaut returned to Earth from his space mission he was asked by the assembled press could he see the wall and he answered ”No”, much to the embarrassment of the Chinese.

We start our walk and its quiet tough, it was rather humid and it wasn’t long till we were sweating profusely, this section of the wall is remote, we saw 4 other tourists as we walked the 10km. There are some precarious sections where the wall has fell apart and the steps have crumbled, leaving us to climb the wall towards the watch tower on hands and knees, climbing up onto the watchtower and jumping down the other side. It really is rustic and as remote as you can possibly get, the lack of other tourists or even hawkers selling stuff really gives you a sense of isolation. Two hours into our hike and we are over half way, our legs were starting to ache and even shake like shitting dogs as we continually climbed and descended the steps - it’s very repetitive going up and down but with the sun starting to set and the lingering mist hanging onto the wall, it made the views so much more spectacular- as you can see from the photos.

As the end of our hike emerged and we entered the Simatai section of the wall, we could see the work being done to repair the wall; they have rebuilt steps and sections of the wall - to be fair, they have redone it tastefully - admittedly they have to as it’s a UNESCO site but it takes something away from it! The light deserted us and it went rather dark, thankfully we excited the wall (there was a high section ahead and there was no way our legs could have taken us up there) and we descend down towards our guesthouse with fire flies (we think that is what they were) flying around in front of us, and headed to the bar for a well earned beer!

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