The Great Wall of China
We were very excited about our day’s activities today as we were finally going to be visiting The Great Wall at Badaling. You will often hear that people have The Great Wall on their Bucket List. I’m always reluctant to have a Bucket List as such but let’s just say it was ‘up there’ with things we wanted to achieve.
Now there are numerous options in China to see this great piece of Chinese history. I always thought it was just one great big wall that ran a certain length of China. Gosh was I wrong (I can be quite challenged when it comes to these type of things).
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick and stomped earth, and other materials. It was initially built along the historical northern borders of China to protect themselves against raids and invasions.
Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century. They eventually joined together and made it bigger and stronger, thus collectively referred to as The Great Wall. There were numerous alterations including watch towers, troop barracks and signalling posts (by smoke or fire).
They don’t call it The Great Wall for no reason. Apparently, it has been extremely difficult to determine just how extensive the wall actually is as it has so many branches heading in different directions. As technology has advanced, it has been concluded that the wall measures approximately 21,190kms which includes the actual wall, trenches and defensive barriers and branches.
This is why The Great Wall is recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history. How could you not want to visit it?
Badaling Great Wall
With a wall of over 21,000km’s long, where on earth do you start, choosing which part of it is best to visit? If we had a choice, we could have researched this as there are plenty of opinions online on where is the best place. One that is preferably less visited and less crowded. It would then be a case of trying to get there and back.
We had all these decisions made for us when we decided on booking our tour. Badaling may be the most visited site to see the wall but at least it was all organised, entrance fees are taken care of and transport sorted. We could always save other parts of the wall for visits back to China in the future.
A distant view of The Great Wall at Badaling
This portion of the wall was built in 1504 and is located approximately 80kms northwest of Beijing. It has undergone extensive restoration and was the first section of the wall to open to tourists in 1957. It is now visited by millions every year.
Our Time on the Wall
Our guide warned us the day before about the harsh cold that we may encounter at The Great Wall and it would be a good idea to add another layer.
Well, that set alarms bells ringing I can tell you. I had no other layers to add as I was wearing my entire winter wardrobe as it was. It was going to have to do. I was banking on the fact that parts of the wall were quite steep and I would work up a sweat, hence keeping relatively warm.
We were also blessed with a crisp clear day which meant that the temperature had dipped to sub-zero. This was still much better than coping with rain so I wasn’t complaining.
Enroute, as we drew closer to Badaling, we were excited to see ruins of the wall come into view. There were bits and pieces of it poking up through the earth, covered in bracken but still clearly visible. It was already becoming apparent, just how fragmented the wall actually was.
We don’t really do crowds or queuing very well. This was something that we steadied ourselves for before arriving in China, for obvious reasons. Before arriving at the most visited area of The Great Wall, I had visions of masses of tourists with queues and waiting times to match.
The site is certainly geared up to take large numbers arriving. It was a very expansive area we pulled into and the numbers dispersed quite quickly as we filed through the entrance way.
The walk up to the wall was a hike in itself so I was glad to expend some energy just getting to it which assisted in fighting back the cold.
We Never Take the Easy Road
Our guide Candy explained the different options available to us before ascending the wall. Basically, there was one way which was an easier climb, not so steep but longer distance. The other way was more of a challenge and extremely steep in places. It travelled way up the hillside to a guard tower, before carrying on to yet a higher hill. She said that if we chose the latter, it would mean we would be ‘heroes’.
Without even looking at Scotty, I knew which one he was going to choose and because we’re a team, I knew that I was in for rather a strenuous workout.
Onward and Upward
It turned out to be a great choice. Although there was still a sizable amount of people walking the route we had chosen, there was certainly less of them. There were only two others in our group (our Indian travel companions) that also were heroes that day.
Not quite a walk in the park!
I can say that I had 5 layers of clothing on my top half and 3 layers on the bottom. In addition, I had 2 pairs of socks, gloves, scarf, beanie and head warmer. I still only just broke out in a sweat by the time we got to the top of the first section. Some of the steps were so steep that you could hold on to the next step at chest height, in order to hoist yourself up.
We carried on further to the next climb past the guard house. The tourists were really thinning out by this stage and only a hardy few remained. We could see the wall stretched on for many more kilometres but felt that we had given it a good go within our timeframe. I was also very much aware that going down wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Grabbing hold of the handrail to negotiate the next giant step certainly held my concentration for the descent.
We had purchased some cheap Chinese wine (or it may have been vodka) which only cost us around $4nz. We poured some into a water bottle so it was lighter in weight. When we reached the top of the wall we had the mandatory toast. At least it warmed the throat as it went down – or should I say burnt!!
Click on the link below for a video of the highlights.