Beijing Day 2- THE GREAT WALL!!

On the second day of our trip, we were picked up by our driver (Mr Mah- a man with a truly low low voice, who should be singing for a living- although his driving through the Beijing congestion was very impressive) and our tour guide, Ana after our really good buffet style breakfast at the hotel. Our first destination for the day was the Ming tombs, about 30 minutes outside of Beijing. Chosen by the Ming dynasty emperors for the feng shui of the area, it is a fairly flat area, with small mountains in the distance. Today,outside the gates of the tombs and the stelae, there are orchards (dwarf apples I think- there was no foliage on the trees and the area below was totally mulched, so no clues, but the pruning and placement of the trees suggests apples- plus China supplies the rest of the world with lots of apple juice- have a look at your cheap apple juice containers in the grocery store next time you are in the juice aisle). The map of the area shows a great number of clusters of tombs. I will hazard a guess that we went to the most spectacular and popular ones. Pretty impressive area when you think of those few people who were buried in that very large area, and all of the effort of some poor people who built the large structures, carved the stelae and put all of the materials in place. Even more stunning is the fact that it survived the communists and is still there for our viewing pleasure, and historical research purposes.

After the requisite trip to the jade "factory" and lunch at a "restaurant" (happens to be a large roomful of dining tables, food ready for the arrival of tourists) fronted by the largest store I have seen while here- it was full of pottery, carpets, t-shirts, cloisonne, chopsticks, pearls and jade and all of the things that people from away with very little time for shopping were attracted to- we finally made it to the Badaling section of the GREAT WALL!! I had read a little about this part of the wall prior to our trip. According to the guide books and web sites, this is one of the busiest sites because it is very accessible from the highway and because it is very close to Beijing. Luckily for us, it is still early in the tourist season and there were hardly any people there that day. The cold wind also helped to keep most people from lingering on the wall. Although we did not have it to ourselves, we did not have to crawl over people just to move around, and the cold also kept the hawkers of tourist garbage huddled in their stalls.

Once we cleared the parking lot, there were two options: go left or right. We chatted a bit and agreed to go right (which essentially was also directly in an upward direction) and then come back down and go left. Many of you, I am sure have seen photos of the wall that show a long, high walkway of stone that has gradual inclines to each of the towers. This is what I was expecting and also what I did not find. The section at Badaling is mostly stairs, lots of them. Made of flagstone, some of the reaches were higher than others, and the stones by the banisters had troughs worn in them. Going up, I knew, would not be as challenging as coming down. Both KMS and I remarked on how it reminded us of the pyramids of sun and moon at Teotihuacan.



We made it up, by agreement, to the second tower. We then came down, and approached the other side, which required passing over the highway (this part I am sure is not original to the wall. In retrospect, I should have used the two allotted hours to do a circle route. Anyways, despite the nearness of the highway, it was still pretty much a thrill to be there. I have at least one more trip to another section of the Great Wall planned for this year- I will surely do a comparison then. It was still a really amazing site and I was not disappointed. It had been the highlight of the trip before I left, and remained so after I had seen it.



After a fairly quick return to Beijing, I think that this is also the day that we went to the temple where the annual sacrifices were made. The emperor did an annual pilgrimage of about 6 kilometers to this site (Let me take a moment here to state, lest you think, as I did, that he walked that distance. He did not- he had a palanquin with porters carry him all that way.) The temple is well preserved, but by that time of the day, we were cold and it was time to get to dinner, and then back to the hotel. Ok, I went back to the photographic record, and this last temple was actually done on the first day. I remember now that we went for a foot massage and Chinese Traditional Medicine assessment before dinner. Maybe they would have prescribed some gingko for memory if only I had submitted to the assessment!




Pictures for this post are thanks to KMS and CDS (and to JCS who helped with the technology) who supplied me with their photos of the Wall and other areas, after I was so unfortunate as to have deleted mine while wrestling with my camera. I know it's been at least two weeks since I was there, but it has been a challenge to find the time to apply the fix to the photos.

I'm also thinking what five songs I would like to listen to while at the top of the wall. I'll post later on that one.