Today we did a trip to the Great Wall! It was a two hour drive outside Beijing. Most people visit the wall at Badaling but that part of the wall was reconstructed in the 80's and is full of tourists. We drove past all the coaches queueing to get in there and drove on for another 30 minutes to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.
There we picked up our guide for the day who was a tiny 73 year old man. He and his 76 year old wife take turns guiding every day.
We hiked up into the hills for about 30 minutes which was quite hard going as the terrain here is quite rough. We were all out of breath (except our guide) but blimey! it was worth it. The wall here is completely untouched. No restoration work has been done at all so it's quite crumbly and parts have fallen down but it is still an amazing sight. We all just gasped with awe as soon as we stood on top of the first section and looked left and right to see the wall disappear into the distance in both directions. After the hard climb we had just done to get here it made the construction of the wall even more impressive. Everything required for it must have been lugged up the hill we had just trekked up.
We walked along the wall for about 3 hours which was harder going than it sounds. The wall follows the contours of the hills and some parts are so steep that you almost crawl up on your hands and knees. It's also not very wide in some parts where it has crumbled away so a bit nerve wracking too.
Just after we had been walking along it for about 2 hours and all feeling a little bit tired and thirsty, we came to one of the watch towers that are positioned on every hill top and inside what did we find but a little chinese man selling t-shirts, keyrings and more importantly water and beer! He just had a fold up table and a big smile. It was really funny seeing him there in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, he lugged his entire stock including table up there every morning and took it down again every night. Mind you, he sold quite a lot of beer!
After the trip we were treated to lunch back at the village and then went back to Beijing. During the entire trip we had met 2 other people on the wall. Both locals. No tourists, no touts, no flag waving guides. Just us and the wall. It was more than I had been expecting and will definately be one of the best memories of our trip.
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