There are few things that one can be confident they knew back in kindergarten and the Great Wall of China is one of them! There are many tourist destinations that are equally amazing, but this one is really quite incredible because of its massive scale and age...especially since it was created by many humans over time and has survived quite a few onslaughts!
We took a small tour bus that crossed through Beijing picking up English-speaking tourists. This was a good tour of the really large, busy city that is due to host the Olympics in about eight months. The traffic was really bad and the smog was crippling, but we were able to see some really cool sites like the CCTV tower that is still under construction.
Eventually we got out of the city and made our way to the Ming Tombs where many emperors of the Ming dynasty are still buried. They are buried deep into a big hill so we only saw the temple and statues that is the typical construction at each of the Beijing emperor tourist destinations. The guide brought us to a Jade factory where we saw some of the workers carving Jade into little trinkets, however, there were some enormous carvings for sale at this shop. Aaron expressed a little too much interest in a family ball where the jade is carved into spheres containing more spheres. A pesky saleswoman picked up on his interest so she followed him around like a lost puppy until he told her he wasn't going to buy anything.
Lunch followed the Jade factory and we had time to browse another tourist shopping place, but this one was called a Friendship Store which is government owned and it doesn't allow bargaining. Bargaining is quite interesting because the rule of thumb is to offer less than 10% of the list price at most places, but I guess the government does not want to play this game like the regular shops.
Finally we arrived at the Great Wall where we had only one and a half hours to explore (photos). Badaling is the most popular spot to visit the great wall since it close to Beijing. We regretfully decided to head up the popular side because we figured there must be something so much better to attract such big crowds. We got about 1 km up some really steep stairs and past about 300 people trying to sell us junk! The entire trek was alongside the huge Olympics sign and a voice was being spoken over a loudspeaker like the old days of communist propaganda.
We eventually figured out the voice was coming from a tram that was taking people up from another entry spot on the wall which is why this side was much more crowded. We turned around and went up the less crowded side which turned out to be a great experience. Eventually we got past all the people and found enough peace to celebrate the fact that we were experiencing such a famous landmark together. Of course less visitors just means there are fewer vendors, but they are much more aggressive since they have fewer victims to pursue. We just gave them the waving hand in the face and busted through their efforts to pawn off their unoriginal junk.
We walked to the end of the wall where there was a wall blocking us from continuing. Looking beyond we saw the wall that was not renovated and essentially unsafe for the many clueless tourists, but thoughts of running or riding the great wall for long distances comes to mind. There certainly would be no trail nor road that could follow such an aggressive path up steep hills picking not the best route for travel, but the best route to keep the Mongolians and other invaders out!
The bus ride back was straight to the point as most tours that end with the big finale, but once we got into Beijing we experienced the nightmare that everyone is talking about when fearing the big Olympic games next year. The traffic was at a dead stop and the visibility due to smog was no greater than 1/2 km. It was by far the worst traffic/smog experience I've ever seen. It makes Los Angeles look like an efficient transportation system and Lima, Peru look like a place with clear blue skies! We crawled through the city and eventually made it back to the Westin for the Christmas Eve festivities before heading across the city to stay at the Chateu de Luze where we stayed for two nights.
We're not sure if there are many better tours of the Great Wall, but if we had it to do over again we would find a multi-day tour that would pack our camp from place to place and allow us to run/hike this amazing structure as it winds through the classic green hills of rural China exposing us to parts of China that would not be experienced from the back of a tour bus.
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