The Great Wall

May 10, 2014

After another delicious breakfast at the Kerry Hotel, we boarded Jack's Bus for a longer than normal ride to the Badaling Hills, where we will have the opportunity to see a portion of the Great Wall of China.  We are told that here the Wall is nearly 28 feet tall, and wide enough for ten people to walk along, shoulder-to-shoulder.  I have verified that in fact, more than ten people can walk along....and we did.

Overall, the Wall is just spectacular, at one time stretching for over 6,200 miles and symbolizing the country's isolation from the rest of the world.  The area we are touring today is the first one opened to tourists.

There are two sections of the wall here, branching out to the North and the South from the central plaza of sorts.  The Southern section is steeper and therefore less crowded, so we opt for that section.  Parts of the wall are just like walking up a steep ramp, and others are so steep that there are actually stairs built into the wall.  Clearly in 700 BC when the wall was built, building codes were a tad more lax than they are now.  The steps are extremely narrow, and no two are the same height.  The rails are obviously made for people much shorter than I.  We're determined to make it to the top, and we do, and only then do we realize that coming back down is going to be even more precarious than going up.  Once we finally make it back to the point of beginning, we check the time and there's still over an hour remaining before we are to meet the rest of Jack's Group, so...

Up we head on the North side.  To say this side is more crowded is putting it mildly.  We're shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of people as we climb this section of the wall.  At least this side is slightly, and I repeat, just slightly, less steep than the other;  but it's longer.  By the time we get to the top and turn around to head back, my Fitbit vibrates to let me know I've met my goal of 12,500 steps for the day.  Too bad it couldn't record the altitude!

Having scaled both available sections of the Wall, we still had a few minutes before our group was to leave, so we found a somewhat cold beer in a little store and sat on a wall (not a Great one) for a short rest before boarding our bus.