May 29, 2004

The Great Wall

Great Wall, China

"It sure is a great wall", Richard M. Nixon

He may not have known much about tape recorders but tricky Dicky sure knew his walls. He's not wrong, it really is a great wall.

With all my time in Beijing I ended up spending about three days on the wall. There are several sections within easy reach of the capital. The most popular being Badaling, fully restored and with cable car access for the less able or just plain lazy. It's extremely popular with Chinese visitors who can combine it with a trip to the Ming tombs in a nice little day outing. Needless to say I steered well clear of this section.

I chose instead to travel to Huanghua, involving a slow bus trip to Huairou then a shared minibus to the village and wall. I hooked up with a New Zealand couple for the minibus journey so it was pretty cheap.

On arriving in the village you are immediately confronted by the magnitude of the effort in building this wall. The surrounding terrain is rugged to say the least, with steep mountains and deep valleys rising and falling on all sides. The route of the wall was simple: just follow the ridge line, no matter what it does. This results in some sections running at nearly 70 degrees as the wall resolutely follows the contours of the mountains.

The wall runs both east and west from the village so, somewhat randomly, I chose to go west first. My Kiwi friends, Romana and Donna, joined me and we scrambled up the hillside to reach the first bit of intact wall, the section right next to the road having crumbled almost away.

We quickly discovered that indeed, no restoration had been done on this section, the top of the wall was so overgrown it felt at times like a bushwalk. The sensational views of the wall on both sides of the village though made all the effort worthwhile. You'd have to stop every now and then and just marvel at what you were witnessing.

Every few hundred metres we'd come to a tower, mostly in surprising good condition with all doors, windows, and even roofs intact. Looking out it was easy to imagine the defenders peering through the windows, scanning the horizon for Mongol hordes.

A couple of hours of this was enough for Romana and Donna and we parted at an access point in a valley. They headed back to the village whilst I kept on. It was hard to stop. There was always one more tower in reach.

Eventually, as the day drew to a close, I reached a point at which the wall descended steeply then had a gap for a hundred metres or so where a dam was now in place. On the other side of the dam the wall climbed out again and continued on over the undulating terrain as far as the eye could see. This was it for me for the day though. I dropped out of the tower and climbed down the hill to the village below.

The whole day was so enjoyable I made a spur of the moment decision to stay overnight at the village so I could explore the other side the next day. I managed to stumble across a new hotel that had a room with a bathroom for 20 yuan. Incredibly cheap. And beer at 3 yuan (about 40 cents) a bottle! Who could say no?

The next day I was up early to climb the eastern half. Walking through the village I passed a lady grinding flour with a donkey-driven stone wheel. It seemed strange so close to Beijing. The eastern half of the wall had been kept clear of vegetation but was more challenging for the steepness of the terrain and the crumbling condition of the path. I found myself clinging tenaciously to the wall as my feet kicked broken steps and crumbling pavers.

The wall on this side seemed also to go on forever but beyond the first steep ascent and descent there was no obvious access so I reluctantly quit my wall-walking at about lunchtime. Time enough for a quick plate of rice before catching the bus back to Beijing.

A few days later I found myself with a day free and decided to head out to another section. A relatively well-known 10km walk connects the Jinshanling and Simatai sections. Thirty towers in all and four hours of walking. The start and finish of the walk are restored but the middle section is original. The relative popularity of these sections showed in the souvenir sellers though. Every entrance to a tower was greeted with "T-shirt? Drink?". As I was here fairly late in the day, and the last one on the wall, I was in a fairly strong bargaining position for drinks, which the sellers would otherwise have to cart back to their villages.

Reaching the end of the walk I was astonished by the terrain that the further (unclimbable) sections of Simatai traverse. A steep, sharp ridge with sheer sides made the wall look spikes clinging to the back of a dinosaur. Surely a great walk also, but not today.

Posted by David at May 29, 2004 08:56 PM