The Great Wall of China -have you heard of it?! I'd love to meet people who haven't - that really would be a rarity in this day and age hey?! It has been listed in the World Heritage by UNESCO since 1987, along with other sites as the Summer Palace in Beijing, the Tower of London in London, England, the Statue of Liberty in the States, Lake Baikal, Irkutz, Russia to name but a few.
The Great Wall winds up and down across grasslands, deserts and even mountains and plateaus! It was built at the expense of tens of thousands of lives; soldiers, slaves, convicts and regular people as well - so it has been associated with the tyranny of the First Emperor of the Ch'in Dynasty. Despite these sacrifices, the poor Great Wall is unfortunately no longer at its best, some places in ruins or even completely disappeared, due to erosion, villagers looting stones for construction, graffiti and vandalism however when you're over two thousand years old you have your excuses! come on! It's an estimated six thousand seven hundred kilometres (four thousand one hundred and sixty three miles) long from east to west and was constructed to keep out the 'Huns' (invading nomadic Hsiung Nu tribes north of China) it had watch towers and signal fires atop them were the early warnings of attack. (Has anyone seen Mulan? The beginning when the Huns arrive? That's actually reasonably accurate!)
The Great Wall of China is legendary, one of the eight wonders of the world and if you ever get the chance to go I fully recommend it. However you need to look out for touts - we were fortunate enough to miss out on that particular experience on the wall however some people we met on other tours had told us stories about how touts climb the wall with you - one guy had had an eighty plus year old woman climb all the way up and down with him! Nonetheless, it is still one of the most appealing attractions all around the world owing to its architectural grandeur and historical significance.
There are several different sections that you can visit in Beijing alone:
+ Badaling Great Wall (where I went) + Shuj Guan (Water Pass) + Juyonguan Pass + Huanghuacheng Great Wall + Jiankou Great wall (Arrow Nock) + Mutianya Great Wall + Gubeikou Great Wall + Jinshanling Great Wall + Simatai Great Wall My Recommended List:
Take a comfy pair of socks and shoes
Bottle of water
Camera
Sense of humour
Take it at your own pace
Try and carry the minimum amount of stuff with you
Cosset your feet and legs as much as possible before and after!
MY EXPERIENCE OF THE GREAT WALL:I visited the Badaling section of the Great Wall with my best friend Katrina. Badaling is located at Yanqing County, more than 70 kilometres northwest from the centre of Beijing City. It is a mountain pass of the Jundu Mountain. Badaling is at the highest point of north end of the Guan'gou gorge, in which the Juyongguan Pass lies. In the history, the function of Badaling was to protect the Juyongguan Pass. Along with Guan'gou gorge, there are several interests and historic sites. Badaling is a rare ancient military defence project. The elevation of it is about 1,000 meters. The wall of Badaling has a total length of 3, 741 meters with an average height of 8 meters the highest part is 15 meters. The total area for a tour is 19, 000 square meters. We took a tour guide which meant we could take pictures as we got closer and didn't have to worry about the traffic on the way there or back!!! It cost us 230 RMB (about £15.50 and included transport, english speaking guide - in theory at least! - lunch and entrance fees) so it was pretty good value really! We arranged it through the travel desk at the hostel, but most hostels in Beijing offer tours if you don't want the hassle of organising something yourself! Unfortunately it also meant we had a time limit :( which meant that you could only go so far up before you had to come down. Our guide only came with us from the marker at the bottom to the top of the first flight of stairs! After that he begged off saying he was too tired! It was quite funny - four girls and him, and he bailed out first! He did tell us not to force ourselves and take care.
The steps were very uneven and worn, you can't see foot imprints but there were dips that would hold puddles of water, or get filled with snow or ice that could turn climbing the Great Wall very dangerous. And make no mistake, you are climbing! There is a handrail however it only really helped if you held it on where you would be in three steps time as it was very low! The steps were bunched up in places so you may take three baby-steps and then have to heave your foot up about a foot for the next step!
When we did this it was a scorcher of a day. We decided to split up and went up at our own paces so no-one felt they were being forced to go too fast or too slow for themselves. I felt so desperately unfit after I climbed up to the first guard-point because I was sweaty and my legs felt sore but I saw someone being sick at the next one so I wasn't that bad! I climbed up to the halfway resting place between the two guard towers and decided I would rest there for a few minutes and see how I felt about climbing up again. I sat at the halfway for about ten minutes, catching my breath, taking pictures, swapping banter with the people coming down and generally enjoying the view. Make no mistake climbing the Great Wall isn't the easiest thing in the world but I saw people of all ages, from eight years old to eighty and all the ages in between or not! My legs were hurting, my lungs were burning and I felt very sweaty. However the views of the places around were amazing! The people coming down were saying about how whilst coming down wasn't a picnic it was better than going up - something I was SO grateful for learning! I hadn't considered how difficult going down might be - I was just concentrating on keeping my legs moving when I was moving - it was one of the few times I've ever been quiet - you save your breath as much as possible here!!! One thing I saw which is really cute was a length of chain along the length of wall on first watch-point before the stairs started again- there were so many padlocks attached to it with ribbons on! The padlocks symbolize never ending love - you attach a padlock with a ribbon on it, on the ribbon you write the name of yourself and your partner, husband or wife etc - it means that you will love each other forever! I have to admit I took out my hair band on the way down and slipped it through a link, my own little take on a Chinese superstition!
I was sitting on the side of the wall at the halfway point, enjoying the sunshine, wishing I had brought some water up with me and chatting away with a guy from Ireland when one of my tour group passed me on the way back down. She asked if I as coming back down but I wanted to see if I could reach the next point before I ad to start coming back down. Whilst we were chatting about this a group of four guys came up to the halfway point we were on. As Sheila made her way back down they sat near me and started posing for pictures -I felt like I was going to be in the way so I moved away, next thing I know they've turned round and pulled me into the middle of the shot! So they have a picture of me kind of nervous and smiling in a whaaaaaaaa…? kind of way in the middle of a couple of them! They were funny and friendly and took a picture of me when I was sunbathing! I waved them on their way, but after they'd left I felt like I could make it to the next guard point before I needed to get back down to my tour group so I started off - halfway up I bumped into one of the guys again - he'd stopped for a rest and he came up the rest of the way with me. When he rejoined the rest of his friends we had a nice chat. They were from Thailand and would be in Beijing until Saturday (30th September) My friend who I had climbed up with taught me some Thai - sav a dee ka (hello) fem. Seb sem (how are you?) and ka poon (thanks) they seemed to find me a bit of a novelty - we all walked down together, taking pictures and they offered to let me go first - no fear! Going up wasn't as hard as going down but it was still hard work! I ended up going last and this was a good thing because the unevenness of the steps meant that I kept going down further than I'd expect - causing me to go down with a little squeak (dum de dum de DUM!!!) at one point we stood on a ledge which was like 2 foot high and we were at a little corner so it was safe to jump down - they held their hands out to assist me down! When we finally got to the bottom we all posed for a few more pictures at the marker again, and then they introduced me to the rest of their tour group so I could speak my newly learnt Thai! That was fun! They all started speaking in a flurry of words and I stood there and looked at them! Got my pictures taken with some more Thai guys and told I was beautiful! Lol we sat in a tree that was actually pretty good for resting my legs because as I stood there not moving my legs actually started shaking!
I got teased by my tour group for my new group of friend (all boys!) whose names escape me even now! Lol I'm going to be getting some of the pictures they took because the amount they took they're bound to have some nice ones of me! As we drove off we looked up to where we had been - it looked so high when you're at the bottom!!!
Well there you have it folks, thanks for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoyed it, Lizzie xxx
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