Sunshine, Steps and more Sweat

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Geo: 39.9165, 116.391

So, day three in China brought us to the main attraction of this part of the trip. We rose early for breakfast and then were picked up and boarded a coach headed for the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Begun during the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in 220BC, and restored during the Ming Dynasty, the Great Wall stretches for over 20,000 km and is made up of walls, watch towers and natural defences such as hills and rivers. The wall was built to keep the out the invading Mongols, who were understandably interested in the agriculture and treasures of China - as our guide pointed out they had only yak meat and yak cheese! We were headed for one of the reconstructed sections of the wall, about an hour and a half from Beijing city centre where we could walk along the steps and pathways with spectacular vistas of the wall disappearing over the lush valleys and hills surrounding the section itself.

The temperature was already in the low thirties when we arrived at the wall at around 10am. Bearing this in mind, when given the choice between the half hour (fairly steep) ascent to the top or the cable car, we chose the easy option. I say easy, but for Stacey, who has a fear of heights, the ski-lift style car which left our legs dangling over 100m or so drops to the mountains below, it would perhaps have been preferable to slog up the hill. However, we arrived at the top to "oohs" and "aaahs" from both Stacey and Ben and so it was obviously worth the hair-raising ride up to the wall itself.

Having previously visited the wall 4 years ago, I presumed that I would keep the camera in the bag and maintain a blase approach to standing atop one of the wonders of the world, while enjoying the reactions from Stacey and Ben. However, what I had failed to take into account is just HOW impressive this section of the wall is. It runs across the horizon, undulating along the surrounding landscape before disappearing into the distance. The photography opportunities are out of this world; despite the number of tourists there, there were still sections of the wall where we appeared to be venturing along its length alone. Needless to say, the three of us took regular breaks from the hiking in order to capture the perfect shot of the wall, whether with the section underfoot providing perspective, a landscape shot of the rippling wall in the distance or a portal panorama shot through one of the windows or doorways of the watchtowers.

The towers themselves proved to be a godsend in the oppressive heat - their shade and capacity for trapping drafts that brought a cool, refreshing breeze to us were greatly appreciated as we sweated our way along the wall from tower 8 to tower 14. Sections of the wall are impossibly steep, with uneven steps which require tremendous concentration as well as stamina. We all ploughed our way through several bottles of water, most of which cascaded down our faces as we pushed ourselves on to the "money-shot" viewpoint at the end of the section. The wall stretched out in front of us, its meanders now moving horizontally as well as vertically, the grey-white brick in direct contrast to the emerald green hills around it. The only aspect of the towers that was not a godsend was the continual smell of fresh or stale urine, puddles of which seemed to have collected around the most picturesque of the portal panoramas - a lovely sight for the pee-ers, not so great for those of use who wanted to take photos from their smallest room with a view.

Our original plan had been to walk down from the starting point to the bottom of the incline to meet the others from our coach for lunch. However, having lost half of our body weight in sweat on the way there, and taken an hour and a half to reach our goal, we knew that time was not on our side and decided to take a (more sturdy) cable car back down to the bottom and go for a beer instead. Our arrival at the bottom of the hill was greeted with delight by the thirty or so hawkers who have built their own empires at the base of the wall. The same products were on offer by each hawker, moving in stages down the rough-hewn steps to the car park below. Our good-humoured banter soon wore off when the stall-holders began standing in front of us and blocking our exit to the staircase.

After elbowing our way down to the base of the steps, we headed for the restaurant in which we were to have our Chinese shared lunch. Our fellow diners were rude and ignorant and made no attempts to converse with us. We asked them where they were from, which they answered politely but no further polite chatter was made. The food though was delicious - mountains of steamed rice, green beans char-grilled with chillies, sweet and sour pork, spicy chicken in an onion sauce the number of dishes was astounding and just kept on coming to the table. It was served to use as we sat around a large, round table with a huge glass revolving plate (like a Lazy Susan) which we spun to get the dish we wanted. The table was covered with a number of thin plastic cloths which were removed one-by-one as each new tour group arrived. A simple business proposition which had clearly hit a gap in the market and did a roaring trade!

The coach then carried us back to Beijing, where a cold shower and plenty of air-con awaited us. Then we hit the smog of the city one final time in order to visit Tiananmen Square and the huge portrait of Chairman Mao that dominates the Tiananmen gate at its Northern edge. A brisk 20 minute walk took us down to the crowds of people who had come to pay their respects to the "great leader" and we were just in time to see the soldiers goose-step across the square. Their paces are set at exactly 108 per minute and they must have a 75cm stride each time. However, the soldiers are clearly not as impressive to the Chinese as a white blonde girl and a white ginger man. Both Ben and I had our photographs taken with several groups of Chinese tourists and families who found our skin and hair to be fascinating. When we weren't being asked for photographs, people were (not so subtly) taking our photos from a distance! Stacey obviously looks too Chinese to be of any interest!

After waiting for the flag ceremony and realising we would be caught in the middle of a 3000 person-strong crush for the subway, we decided to take our leave of Chairman Mao and head back to Ghost Street where we found ourselves in the same restaurant for a remarkably similar meal as the previous evening (minus, of course, the Sichuan chicken.....) The subway took us home to pack, sleep and wake up for the next part of our journey, carrying Stacey and I back to our beloved Vietnam and Ben to experience this beautiful country for the first time.

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