Walking on the Chinese Wall

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I had been obsessively listening to the "Walking on the Chinese Wall" by Philip Bailey for about a month before I left for China- classic 80s song. Probably my main motivation for this trip was to finally see the Great Wall- one of my favourite things about travelling is to actually see those iconic buildings or natural sights that I have only seen in photos before. The Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, Mt. Fuji, the Eiffel Tower, Angkor Wat, being able to see the real thing is just such an amazing feeling, they are even more impressive up close than in any picture. So finally I was going to walk on the Chinese Wall (I have decided to capitalise it every time I mention it, so you know I'm talking about THE Wall).

I bought muffins, yoghurt (again being able to read a lot of Chinese characters came in handy here- there were quite a few tourists in the supermarket and they kept picking up things, looking at them suspiciously, and putting them down again) and juice for breakfast and we left on the bus for the Great Wall. I saw no fewer than 3 car/ motorbike accidents on the way, one of them quite nasty-looking, which was part of the reason it took over 3 hours to get there- the traffic just crawled. Chinese driving is similar to Indian driving (either nobody knows there are any road rules or nobody thinks the rules apply to them) but probably faster (when they aren't in traffic jams caused by accidents) because the roads are in better condition.

The Wall was fantastic, but a lot more exercise than I had expected! First you have to actually get up onto the Wall, which means a long slog up a steep flight of stone steps- I am not as fit as I used to be, definitely. Only certain sections of the Wall are actually open to visitors, so you can't just wander about at random. This section, called Mutianyu, has about twenty towers' worth of Wall open and restored- probably about 2 or 3km, but I'm only guessing. We started from around tower 8, had lunch at tower 10, then hiked up to number 14- it was uphill most of the way and got very steep so we passed on hiking to tower 20- if it had been cooler I probably would have been up to it, but climbing thousands of steps in 30 degree temperatures isn't that much fun.

You could see the Wall extending off a little way, but because of the haze you dont really get the view of it snaking off into the distance like you see in some photos. The unrestored sections look quite different, the stones look quite rough and crumbled and have grass and scrub growing in between them.

Downhill all the way to tower 6, where you can pay a few yuan to ride a luge (they call it a "slideway" down off the Wall- how is that for cheesy?! I wasn't going to do it because it just seemed wrong, but bowed to peer pressure, so was down off the Wall in no time. It could have been faster and more thrilling but someone ahead of us sat on the brake the whole way down unfortunately.

In the evening three of us decided to see a Shaolin kung fu show, so we took a taxi to the Red Theatre, a building literally covered in red neon, and arrived just as the show was starting. It was done as a musical and very impressive although I kind of doubt they are serious martial artists, just performers with some martial arts training. It's always amazing to see what the human body is capable of though. I love the martial arts moves in "wide horse stance" (have you ever tried standing with your feet 4 feet apart for any length of time? It's a lot harder than it looks!) and the flying leaps that they can do. Something I had never seen before was two teenage boys doing backwards flips onto their heads, then flipping back to their feet- can you imagine leaping up and then landing on your head without getting brain damage? Just amazing. Photography wasn't permitted in the theatre unfortunately, but I will be posting photos of the Shanghai acrobats later, and they were almost as good.

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Photos

Great wall, Mutianyu
This is my favourite photo

Gate to the Wall
Mutianyu

Chongwenmen Road
One of Beijing's busier thoroughfares, from my hotel room