The Wandering Chocoholic

So, I climbed the Great Wall of China today. What did you do?

Traffic jam, Chinese-style

After breakfast, we packed the bags into our private van to head out of the city towards the Great Wall. After yesterday’s thunderstorm, today was hot but not nearly as humid, and some sky was actually visible through the haze, which was nice. We were headed towards the Mutianyu section of the Wall, which is one of several restored sections accessible from Beijing, and is meant to be less crowded than the others.

Traffic was “light”, it being Saturday today, so the 80-kilometer drive only took two hours. Most of that time was spent stuck in gridlock on the highway, with cars passing each other with only a couple of inches of clearance. Our driver spent a fair bit of time driving in the shoulder, weaving in and out of lanes, and narrowly missing busses. On weekdays, traffic is so chaotic that Beijing restricts people by license plate number to only be allowed to drive on certain days. Remind me never to complain about Montreal traffic again.

The heroic climb

We got to Mutianyu just before eleven, and set out to explore. Our guide told us that there’s a Chinese legend that says that anyone who climbs the Great Wall is a hero. Well, give me my medal, cause that’s exactly what I did.

The hike started with an 800-step climb up the footpath to the wall. Once at the top, we spent the next three hours climbing stairs from one gate to the next, exploring different sections of the path, and of course taking cheesy photos, as you do. All the other tourists were doing the same thing, so we also did a fair bit of dodging selfie sticks and crowds. There are a few strange habits that I’ve noticed here so far in China, and one of them is people’s tendency to go through a doorway and then just stop there, blocking it for anyone behind them.

Climbing the steps in the hot sun in the middle of the day was exhausting. I think I drank a full litre and a half of water and sweated out at least that much. I know, I know, too much information.

But it was truly impressive. The scale of the Great Wall needs to be seen to be believed. It goes all the way across China, pretty much, spanning over 6,000km, and was built over multiple eras (the part we were on was just celebrating its 610th anniversary.) We were just on one tiny section near Beijing, but even that took hours to navigate and I was still only able to see a small part of it. It’s hard to imagine how long it must have taken to build, or at the cost of how many human lives. Although the thing about it being visible from space is just a myth, it’s still really something.

Some of the others went on ahead as far as the section of the wall that was closed off to tourists (and they kept going, just for the heck of it) and then took a toboggan to get down. I opted to head back down the footpath, and by the bottom, my knees and legs were shaking something fierce. I felt a little like I was back in Mexico hiking on the Mayan ruins, with all those stairs.

Great Wall of China: Check.

Goodbye, Beijing

We got back to the city around five, and got dropped off at the train station. Quick stops for water, train snacks and dinner before boarding our sleeper train to Xi’an.

That’s that for Beijing, then. I’ll have to add it to the long list of cities that really deserved more time than I was able to devote to them. I missed seeing quite a bit, but then, there’s still a lot of journey ahead. This is only the beginning. Stay tuned.