Brace yourselves for a lot of photos
On the second day in Beijing we visited the Great Wall of
China, hoping that we could use the entire day to walk along its path and
sample its many beautiful views. However on the way we encountered some bad
luck which ruthlessly shortened our time there, but that didn’t change what an overwhelming
experience it was.
We had many options to choose from, such as what portion of
the wall to visit. The section known as Badaling is the most popular (and most
packed with people) so we felt it best to avoid. Eventually I narrowed it down
to two options: Mutianyu, known for the best spots for photograpjhy, and
Jinshanling, the ‘wild’ part of the great wall; I eventually settled on
Mutianyu.
Mutianyu however is located very far out from Beijing, which
was advertised as a 2.5 hour bus trip – not too bad, if they were telling the truth...
We got the bus at 8:30am and eventually arrived at the
entrance of Mutianyu at 1:30.
The bus journey there was insane. Although the bus was large
enough to seat 50 people we were lucky enough to get there in time to get the
last 2 seats. In addition at least another 50 people were standing in the bus
corridor for the entire journey.
It wasn’t all the bus company’s fault to be fair. The reason
we chose to go to Beijing these 3 days is because of a public holiday known as ‘Tomb
Sweeping’, basically a holiday where families travel back home to pay respect
to their ancestors’ tombs. Yinzi didn’t
need to attend this holiday as her dad had already done it 1 week before, so we
thought we would visit during her time off hoping that maybe due to the nature
of the holiday that there wouldn’t be too many tourists. We were wrong. This
amounted to a lot of traffic going to and from the Great Wall, doubling the
duration of the drive there.
There was another option, we could have taken a tour bus – however
this only allowed 3 hours in total to visit the wall (climbing up there,
walking, climbing back down etc) which didn’t feel like enough. In retrospect I
guess I was being greedy when I dismissed this option, but then again I guess
those buses wouldn’t have avoided the traffic either (maybe those travellers
only got half an hour at the Great Wall).
Near the end of the journey I was starting to get pretty
stressed out. Along the way the bus made FIFTY stops. Despite being full after
the first 2 stops the bus lady insisted on stopping at every one of these stops
to stick her head out of the window and have arguments with the passengers who
couldn’t board the only bus going to this location. Combined with people within
the bus shouting at her for how long the trip was taking, it was a very
stressful and noisy experience. By the end I was rocking back and fourth in my
chair, occasionally downgrading my expectations from ‘we can still have 3 hours
there’ to ‘we can still have 1 hour there’ or ‘we can still take 1 photo and 1
step’…
We eventually arrived to the entrance – well, before that
there was a huge traffic jam caused by a car accident. So we have to get off
the bus and walk for a good 35 minutes to the entrance. By this time we hadn’t
had any food, we’d ran out of water long ago and the heat was mad. To our
surprise a Subway came to our rescue, so we got some grub and headed up to the
wall as soon as possible.
Once at the top we were greeted by this awe-inspiring site. All
the stress and greed for ‘a full day at the great wall’ just fell away
instantly. I was just so glad that we made it - If we hadn’t it really would
have been a tragedy (in my mind at least). We had 1 hour to walk the wall, and
although it wasn’t nearly as much as we both expected it was plenty of time to
make an impact. Besides, we got there at ‘nearing sunset’ time – my favourite
time for photography!
There’s not much words can say about what I could see, I’ll
let the photos do most of it for me. All I can say is that the Great Wall is
one of those man-made wonders which receive a lot of hype, but is one of the
few which truly lives up to its expectations. Ever since I pictured as a child that
one day I would make it there, the Great Wall was exactly as amazing as I always
expected it to be – if not more amazing! I didn’t even know they had blossoming
trees on the hills surrounding!
Ancient Wall
+
Mountain Views
+
Blossoming spring trees
+
Sunset atmosphere
= *insert powerful descriptive word here*
It was one of those moments when you see a painting come to
life, truly one of the most amazing views I have ever seen.
We managed to walk a decent length in the time we had, maybe
about ¼ - not reaching the really steep parts which was a bit of a shame, but
maybe Yinzi wasn’t so much up to that after putting her through a 5 hour coach
journey.
I didn’t want to leave afterwards, but we had to catch the
final bus at 4pm otherwise we’d need to pay for a pretty hefty taxi fare. So we
made our way back down to the village where I bought myself a rather smashing
souvenir from a guy – a small, traditional Chinese bottle which he painted
himself!
We got in the (1 mile long) line for the bus where people
packed themselves on board to such an extent that the door failed to close the
first 4 times… So we decided to get a taxi to the nearest metro station. This
took only 2 hours in total, if only we’d known that morning.
That night we slept very well.
So my trip in the end wasn’t really ruined at all. I guess I
learnt that in order for something to have an impact its not about how long you
look at it for, but through what perspective you view it from. With the perfect
seasonal conditions combined with the possibility of having not made it at all I
was very grateful for what I had seen that day. I know I say this for nearly
everything I visit here in China, but it was certainly one of the highlights – It
was only an hour out of hundreds I’ll experience in my lifetime, but it’s one I’ll
certainly never forget. It’s also one which is most preserved with photos – I managed
to take 270 photos in 1 hour! How?!
My next post will be based on the final day in Beijing –
Visiting the Temple of Heaven and taking the high speed train across 2/3rd
the length of China back to Guangzhou!
Zai’jian!
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