The is a smooth section of the wall. Crowded.
On Friday - Lulu hired a guide - car and driver - to take us to the Great Wall of China. Along with the Pyramids of Egypt that we saw in the spring - they are two of the Wonders of My World. We walked along the top of the wall about two miles - mostly going uphill. It was a very strenuous climb over very poor footing conditions. It was compounded by large crowds - foggy weather - 50 degrees - and windy conditions. Quite frankly my pictures are not that good. Let’s face it - taking pictures of a wall you are walking on top of - is difficult. The fog prevented me from getting many good long shots. I must admit I did a lot of huffing and puffing. I stopped for rest a few times. You can imagine how I felt when we got to the top of the mountain - our guide said we were taking the cable car down. My first thought was why not take the cable car up - and walk the sloped down?
Most of the visitors are Chinese - there are 1.3 billion of them
We left town in a limo - really a new Buick van. Buick vans are very popular here - they look a lot like a Honda van. It was about 90 minutes - to Bandaling - probably the most crowded wall access - because it was closest to Beijing. We got tickets - I do not know if they were free because the guide got them.
Then we mounted the wall. Our guide pointed to the top of the mountain - maybe two miles away. It looked easy. It was not.
A little history - there are 13,000 miles of walls - some of them are over 2500 years old - and mostly earthen. Some have been removed and reused. The classic wall we know today is from the Ming Dynasty - about 1300 to 1600. There are about 5500 miles of Ming Walls. This is the classic wall - about five meters high - maybe 5 meters across. It is really two stone walls with debris filled in between them. Then it is bricked over. About every ⅓ mile there is a watch tower that housed cannons and 30 soldiers. The wall mysteriously weaves back and forth - up and down - like a dragon. You might expect the top of the wall to be smooth. It is not - everything is weathered - lots of steps. It is a gigantic work of art.
The wall was not just built to keep out vandals from the north. It was used as a customs regulation - to control the Silk Road - also - just a show of power to keep roaming immigrants out. It was build to defend against spears and arrows - today’s weapons would make it worthless.
There is a myth that it can bee seen from the moon. No way. That would be equivalent to seeing a hair from 100 yards away. Some astronauts in low earth orbit claim - 100 miles up - to be able to see it - if you know where to look - and at sunset with long shadows. It is only roughly 20 feet high and 20 feet wide.
We took Jan to this section because it fit into her time schedule. We plan to return - hopefully to sunny skies - hopefully warmer - and yes - we will visit less crowded places - and make sure we take the cable car up and walk down.
After the Wall - we had a great buffet lunch - and then went to the Hot Springs to swim. We left home at 8 and were back at 5. Now that we did it once with a guide - we could easily do it all on our own. You drive to a destination parking lot. A shuttle bus takes you to the wall entry village - you walk about 100 yards to the wall.
The motif is from Ming Dynasty
Members of the Red Army enjoying the day
We ended up walking UP to the towers behind us
The cable cars took us down in less than 5 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment