Day 38 – October 25 – Beijing

I was relieved to find out in the morning that my buddy from the night before had confirmed my tour to the Great Wall of China for this morning. He had called the bus company last night during our excursion to the bar, but, to be frank, I had no idea if he was just speaking into a cell phone which was turned off. So I was going to be picked up to do a tour of the Great Wall. Awesome. It was an early morning, dragging myself out of bed at 6:30 to get on the bus at 7:00am. I don’t think I described the bathroom of my room earlier. Supposedly I had been “upgraded” to a traditional Chinese room. This meant that my bathroom did not utilize more recent improvements like caulk or sealant. No, instead when I took a shower, water was everywhere, creating a small pool on the stone floor. Yeah, slipping on the floor was pretty easy, and I almost cracked my head open on the wall. Safety regulations have not been introduced in China, not at all. The water spilled out into the main room, which I had to mop up with my comforter. Hopefully there is housekeeping, and hopefully they don’t freak out when they see a small flood in my room.

I got on the bus when it arrived at the hotel. In total, we had 10 tourists (2 Brazilians, 2 Americans, 1 Russian, 2 Indians, 2 Singaporeans and myself). We had a local Chinese girl as our guide. Like most Chinese in the tourism industry, our guide had a Chinese name (Sunflower) and her chosen English name, Barbara. She said she liked it from US television shows. Barbara spoke in English to all of us, which was a slight issue, as the Russian girl spoke little to no English. I attempted to speak to her in French or Italian, but no, she only spoke Russian. This made things slightly difficult in the van. The first stop was the Tomb of the Ming Emperors. This stop was unexpected to me. When I spoke with my buddy the night before, I only expressed an interest in visiting the Great Wall, not any additional sites. I guess he was just selling a product and getting his cut, so I had the opportunity to see the Tomb, also. First off, I was not very impressed. The site contained numerous tombs which included both above ground and underground components. Similar to the ancient Egyptian tombs of the pharaohs, large, elaborate tombs were built on the surface to conceal the actual burial crypts which were buried deep beneath. It was interesting to see the furnishings and pottery sealed with the emperor’s crypt. There were a series of emperors from the Ming Dynasty who situated their tombs in this area, some with larger ones while others died young and had little more than a marble crypt. We walked down about 350 steps to get down to the most famous tomb, walked around for about 30 minutes, and then returned to the surface. Interesting, but I am not that excited about tombs. You died, great, everyone does. Having a deeper grave doesn’t make you much cooler. Pile a massive pyramid on top or have your surviving lover build you a mausoleum like the Taj Mahal, now that’s impressive.

After the Tomb we had lunch at a Chinese government licensed jade factory. Yup, total scam. We walked around, getting lecture on how the true great piece of jade is made from a mineral called jadeite, which is very rare and very hard. They typically are very uniform in color, compared to other types of jade which will have veins or spots of white. I actually think that makes it look cool, but what do I know? Most people in our group bought something from this place, and Barbara was doing all she could to push us towards purchasing items. Lunch was decent, rice, sweet and sour soup, spring rolls, noodles and citrus chicken. The best part was that we sat at a large round table with a lazy susan in the middle and serve the food family style. Some of these people really hadn’t been raised in a family style tradition. Food was everywhere, getting spilled left and right. Soups were sloshing over the sides of bowls and tea was a disaster. After we all cleaned up, we reboarded the bus for the Great Wall.

There are several different sections of the Great Wall which are open to tourists. The most famous is the Badaling section of the Wall which is closest to Beijing and, therefore, sees the most tourists. When world leaders are pictured on the Wall, this is the section they visit. It has been completely restored but is crowded with tourists. On the other end of the spectrum is the Jinshanling section of the Wall which has not been restored. One can walk 10 kilometers between the beginning and end, usually without passing too many other tourists. It is much farther from Beijing than Badaling, about a 3-4 hour drive. There are parts where the Wall is crumbling and weeds are growing along the path. This is the part that I wanted to visit, but the guy from the night before said it was closed this time of year due to inclement weather and structural safety issues. I should have known that was BS from the get go, there are no safety issues in China. Instead, I went to the Mutianyu section. It is a happy medium between the Badaling and Jinshanling sections. Most of it is restored, but one can see the original parts of the Wall at the ends of the walk. At the base of the Wall is a small tourist street where one can buy food, ice cream, hats, t-shirts, flags… really anything. I bought one of those big furry Mongolian hats which I thought was funny. When my parents went to China in the 90s, they brought these hats for my brother and me. Just another happy memory. To get to the Wall one can do a long walk up the hill, about 45 minutes, or take the chair lift, which is included in the ticket price. All of us chose to do the chair lift because we would rather spend the time walking up the Wall rather than walking up to the Wall. Before getting on the lift, Barbara asked me to walk with the Russian girl (we’ll call her Ruski from now on) and make sure she gets back to the bus when our two and a half hours on the Wall expire. Sure, no problem, Barbara, I’ll do your job for you. At the Wall, one can walk left or right. To the left is a long, winding path which leads down the most restored section of the Wall. To the right is a dramatic rise and fall of the Wall which ends with the Wall splitting into two unrestored sections. Ruski and I decided to go right. Well, to be honest, I wanted to go right and I dragged her behind me. The reason I wanted to go right was the smaller number of visible tourists. Since this section included some steep climbs, people with bad knees would not be able to do the walk. We hiked up and down, taking picture after picture along the way. The Wall is incredible. It winds along the crest of the mountain like a snake slithering through the grass. Towers along the way punctuate the Wall; each designed slightly differently to compensate for the changes in topography along the route. Some had staircases or ladders leading up to lookout points on top of the towers while others just had thin windows large enough to allow archers to shoot out at approaching Mongolians. It was quite a sight. We climbed all the way to the end of this section of the Wall, after a very steep set of stairs which were deteriorating by the day. Ruski was not having much of this, she wasn’t a fan of the stairmaster. At the end, we walked past the Do Not Enter sign to see the crumbling mass of the last tower. It was magnificent from this vantage. I was standing on nothing more than a pile of rubble, crumbling after hundreds of years of dereliction. I could picture the Chinese soldiers patrolling the Wall as cavalry from Mongolia raced towards Chinese land. The Great Wall is thousands of miles long and consistent in its strength and size. While some parts might be lower or thinner, no portion is by any means small. The Ruski was yelling at me in Russian, probably something to the extent of “Hey, this area is off limits and I want to go back, stupid Capitalist!” I took some more photos, enjoying the changing colors of the foliage which created an beautiful backdrop for the Wall. I think I picked the perfect time to visit this part of the world. The changing colors of the leaves added another dimension to all the views and the creeping cold kept away the hordes of tourists. From this extreme end of the Wall, there were very few tourists with us.

We walked back to the top of the chair lift, but decided we had about ten or fifteen more minutes to visit, so we did. We walked a bit farther and enjoyed the view from the other side. During the Culture Wars, a large sign, similar to the Hollywood sign in LA, was erected near this part of the Wall which said “Stay Faithful to Chairman Mao.” So, that is in the backdrop of most of my pictures. Wonderful. We wandered around for as long as I could before the Ruski really started to freak out. So we left. There were two options on the way down: chair lift or toboggan. Ruski decided to take the chair lift while I took the toboggan. Seriously, how often are you at the top of the Great Wall of China and have the opportunity to take a toboggan down to the base? Not often at all. So I did the ride. There is a long silver track which ran down the side of the hill and the actual toboggans were hinged in the middle, so if one pushed down on the front handle, one’s butt would lift up, disengaging the brake. If one didn’t push down, the hinged middle would drop, applying a brake. I flew down this thing, shooting video the entire way, until I realized that, as with most things in China, there was a traffic jam in the middle. So, from there, I slowly coasted down. It was fun, I would recommend it to anyone given the chance.

Back on the bus, we continued the journey down the road and back to Beijing. It was a long ride, about 2 hours or so. It was along a small river and the trees along the bank were bright red and yellow. It was great. I put in my earphones, listened to some good music (again, the soundtrack to my life), and enjoyed the ride back. Most people in the car were completely passed out. Then, when we were about 20 minutes outside the city, we stopped. Barbara got up, looked excited, and welcomed us to the silk factory. WTF? Silk factory? Completely unnecessary. I don’t need it, at all. So we went in, learned how they make silk clothes and silk duvets, and then were told we could buy them if we wanted. Really, can I!? I’ve always wanted a silk bathrobe! Wait, no, I really don’t want one. One of the Singaporeans bought a duvet and comforter for his daughter who had allergies. The rest of us just milled around until we could leave.

After that, I was ready to be done. It was an exhausting day of driving, getting in, getting out, see this, see that. I had been extremely pleased with the Great Wall, the rest I could have done without. When I got back to the hotel, I went for an evening walk around the walls of the Forbidden City. This would be my major attraction tomorrow.