A great day at the Great Wall of China

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A great day at the Great Wall

Todays plan: go for a hike, starting at the old part of the wall in a village called Jiankou and ending at the touristic area of Mutianyu. The hike itself seems to be not that big problem for us but the logistics. Why? Jiankou is an area north of the wall with several villages Xizhazi 1 to Xizhazi 6, about 100km away from Beijing. Mutianyu is a village south of the wall. The tour starts at Xizhazi 2 without any signs. Access to this part of the wall is restricted. Before we could start the tour we had to research GPS waypoints, village names in chinese characters, bus lines, time tables and so on. Absolutely time consuming!
... don't try to ask a taxi driver for Xizhazi 2. Always have your complete and detailed offline map including waypoints with you.

Our day started with a taxi-drive to Dongzhimen bus station. First challenge: to explain the taxi driver where we want to go. Because he didn't know "Dongzhimen bus station", even if it is one of the main Beijing bus stations. And most probably "Dongzhimen" spoken by me sounds like a stomach medicine but not as a part of Beijing city. After a while we could show him on our offline stored smartphone map the chinese name of our target. It worked!
Nevertheless such simple actions always cost unnecessary time.
Next challenge: find the public bus to the city "Huairou", about 60km northeast of Beijing. From Dongzhimen to Huairou we had to take bus 916. But which one? There are two! One is 916, the other one is 916快. 快 is chinese for fast, so we looked for that one and found the departure gate in Dongzhimen north terminal. From the inside McDonalds (there is a McDonalds outside opposite the road as well!) it's easy to find if you follow the sign 916快.
After a drive of two hours - without traffic jam it's a good hour - we arrived at Huairou. Important: take the right bus stop for your exit: Mingzhu Guangchang. Of course you need the chinese characters again (明珠广场) to compare station by station when to get out. We were welcomed by the expected "tour guides" and taxi-drivers which always make you a "special price". Knowing about the touts we could bargain the drive to Xizhazi 2 for 100 RMB. Being well prepared we had the precise GPS coordinates of the point where we had to leave the road through the village. It is about 1km behind the gate where you have to pay 20 RMB per person for the entrance to "I don't know why". Seems to be a kind of nature reserve. The coordinates are N40°28.208', E116°31.725'.
We payed our driver 100 Yuan, he wanted to have 30 more.
Not unexpected ... "Soo long way, so hot in the car, gasoline so expensive."
After a 10 minute walk on a small road we reached the starting point of the hike at N40°27.962', E116°31.859'.
We followed the road a few meters until we reached a small Inn. The owner was very friendly. He told us the correct way: we passed the Inn on the left side. Behind the Inn we followed the road about 50 meters slightly up. Exactly when we reached the next building, we turned left onto the path. Now we always followed the path up, up, up until we arrived at the Zhengbei Watchtower at N40°27.274', E116°33.163'.
There is no entrance gate, no ticket counter. Access is denied, nevertheless some mainly western tourists find their way.
The locals placed two small ladders here which we had to use - and to pay - in order to reach the upper level of the wall.
From here the wall hiking started for the next four hours. The first half of the hike followed the not restaurated part of the wall. The second half from tower 23 to tower 6 was on the restaurated wall. We left the wall to the south and walked down to Mutianyu in about 30 minutes. It's not worth taking one of the both cablecars (operating until 17:00 only!). We took a taxi back to Huairou and the bus to Dongzhimen bus station in Beijing.
A really great day with one of our china highlights ended.
More pictures see below!

Comment: without tourism the great wall may not exist anymore. Over hundred of years the wall was used as a ressource for stones.

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Comments

[aaron]

a question
Hello, thanks for your blog! I will also try to make the Jiankou/Mutianyu hike. I'm a little bit confusing, do I need to take a taxi, or can I go there just by bus? Thanks in advance, aaron

[Wechtenspringer]

Great Wall from North
HELLO Aaron. You need both. First the bus. Then the Taxi. Unfortunately I lost all my waypoints. If I found some details on another computer I will inform you. Adrian

[Wechtenspringer]

The way to Xizhazi 2
Hello Aaron. I have just checked my blog again. Sorry, a more detailed explanation is not possible. And not necessary. I wrote all GPS coordinates and all waypoints, even in chinese letters. If you are not able to find the way with such details I recommend you NOT to take this tour. Adrian