The Great Wall
Trip Start
Jun 04, 2008
1
22
79
Trip End
Feb 20, 2009
Beijing,
China
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
At Miyun, a guy jumped on the bus shouting this was the transfer point to Simatai. He seemed about as excited as yesterdays taxi driver when he saw us, so I asked a couple of other people on the bus if this was Miyun. Three out of four said yes. So we got off, and so did the two other foreigners on the bus. The man squaked out mini bus prices, and all but pushed us into his taxi. We tried to ask other people the price, and it dropped from 50 to 35 quay per person, and it no longer needed a return trip. We got in the lady's car. The man continued to hound us as we got in her car, and we continued to tell him we weren't interested. We all got in the car, and that's when it got really confusing. The man stood in front of her car and kept talking. She said Eric and I should go with the man, and the other two foreigners with her. We said we weren't going to-we were going to go together and split the cost between the four of us. They bickered. We stayed put. I don't know what he said, but whatever it was, it ticked her off and she pushed him. Then he pushed back. Then it turned into an all out fight! We stared at them in dumbounded confusion and we decided it was probably time to get out of the car. We didn't want to go with either of them anymore. We got out, walked across the parking lot, and asked a guy to take us up to Simatai for 35/person. He said fine and we got in. Meanwhile, those two continued to fight. As the taxi we were in pulled away, the man grabbed a heavy stick from his minibus and headed back towards the lady. Just then, a bunch of other people grabbed the two taxi drivers and seemed to break the fight up. We think there was a cop nearby, but the whole scene disappeared from site as our new taxi drove off. We kind of stared back in bewilderment, wondering exactly how that came about, but none of us had the language abilities to ask.
What a way to start the day.
After that adventure, we got to Jinshinliang without any more troubles. We started the 10k+ hike along the wall. It wasn't a completely clear day, but it was clear enough. The weather was a bit chilly, but quickly felt warm as we started climbing the wall stairs. At first, the stairs looked liked the highly manicured stone steps that we have found along the mountain sides. However as the kilometers went by, so did the condition of the stairs. It went from uneven intact stone steps, to uneven broken stone steps, to stones in dirt, and in some places rubble. There were a couple points where the wall itself was dilapidated eough that it had 'danger' signs posted with detours that ran parallel to it for a ways before reconnecting again. It wasn't an immensly difficult path, but it wasn't an easy one either, and I can see how twisting an ankle could be very easy.
The wall is immense. It goes as far as the eye can see. It follows a the mountain ridgeline, and you can see the wall go up and down the mountain in both directions off into the distance. At each peak there is what used to be an old tower. There are fletcher holes for shooting arrows along the northern border of the wall, and in every tower. This was still the high tourist season, but there really werent too many people on the wall at all. There were a couple of points where we were actually hoping to see someone just so we knew were werent the absolute last people on the wall, or that we hadn't gone the wrong way on one of the detours.
