We awaken to a very wet day and after another hearty breakfast take the bus for the hour ride to the Badaling Hills for our visit to another wonder of the world – the Great Wall of China. Here the great wall is nearly 28 feet wide – wide enough for 10 people to walk abreast. Again if you want to learn more about the construction of this massive fortification which I am sure you know can be seen from space then visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
It is of course a UNESCO World Heritage Site and once stretched for 6200 miles – thank goodness we were only going to walk for about half a mile!
We arrived in driving rain with the hill top towers to the north and south of the walls shrouded in cloud. The first challenge was to fight our way through the throng of umbrella and poncho sellers – lots of ‘Bu Yao” required! Having made our way through the entrance and on to the wall Paul insisted on stopping to take a photo of each of us in the most scenic position – this despite the fact that you couldn’t see more than 50 yards for the rain! We then had a choice of taking a hike along the wall either to the North – said to be the easier route – or south. Guess which route I took – yes the southern and it did turn out to be a stern test of stamina especially on the descent.
The wall climbs more steeply than I had imagined and on cobbles it was very slippery. The ascent was made much harder by the huge variation in the height of steps from a couple of inches to over 18 inches! I estimated that what with the steep slopes and several fights of stairs the hike to the first main fortress tower was over 300ft! It was something of an achievement and gave me a good idea of the sheer magnitude of this man made feature.
The descent proved even trickier – even with boots on it was extremely slippery especially on the steep sloping sections. There are plenty of hand rails but since the Chinese are a short race the hand rails were very low and not really of much use. The worst sections were where the wall took a sharp left or right on the sloping cobbled sections. I slipped several times but on each occasion several pairs of Chines hands came to my aid with smiles and reassurance for which I was very grateful.
A chance to dry off in a local hotel that again was packed with souvenirs before returning to Beijing for lunch.
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