The Great Wall

We chose to visit the closest section of the Great wall of China today, (Friday), as we thought it would be quieter then leaving it to the weekend, (WRONG).

After a good night’s sleep after the long journey from London and a lot of walking around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace yesterday we met in reception at 9AM and stepped outside the hotel to find the road closed to traffic and very busy with pedestrians walking towards the Forbidden Palace.

I tried to book a taxi on WeChat but all were busy so decided to ask the hotel receptionest to call us a cab.

“You would like a taxi to the Great Wall at Badaling, today? now? really?” asked the receptionist.

“yes please” I replied, unaware of why he was looking at me as if I was a stupid foreigner asking for a ticket to visit the moon. Anyway the car soon arrived and off we went for the 25 mile 40 minute ride.

Two hours later after crawling up the motorway in a giant queue of traffic I noticed the road sign that said “Badaling, Great Wall 10 miles”. Another hour later and we were there! The fare just £10, feeling sorry for our poor driver who was obviously not going to earn much today I did tip him £5 for which he was very grateful.

So joining the queue for the shuttle bus from the car park to the entrance of the wall we googled todays date, April 4th, which brought up this.

The “Festival of Sweeping the Graves,” also known as Qingming Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day, is a Chinese festival celebrated on April 4th or 5th each year. It’s a time for families to visit the tombs of their ancestors, clean the gravesites, and make ritual offerings. The festival is a way to honor and remember deceased ancestors, as well as to celebrate the arrival of spring. It is a public holiday and after cleaning the graves of your ancestors a chance to enjoy a day out.

Well that explained the thousands of people heading for a trip to the great wall.

Anyway with typical Chinese efficiency the queue moved swiftly and we were soon atop the wall after a short ride on the funicular railway.

What a view! The long journey was well worth it. The wall stretches off into the distance as far as the eye can see. The whole wall stretches for over 13,000 miles and was started over 2,00 years ago to protect China from invaders from the north and the section at Badaling is one of the best preserved sections and the closest to Beijing which also means it can be very busy at times.

We had finally made it to the wall !

After a walk along the wall admiring the view we decided not to join the masses climbing even higher and thought that a leisurely walk down the mountain would be much easier and enjoyable.

In the distance down below you can just see the car park full of buses ready to take visitors back to beijing.

Luckily there was a good path down!

A lone warrior stands guard and protects the wall, keeping a careful watch for invaders.

Halfway down there was a rest area with toilets and where you could buy an ice cream, a cold drink or some souvenirs. As we reached the entrance there were plenty of people just starting the long walk up to the top! Rather them than me I thought feeling glad we took the railway.

And so we headed back to Beijing on the bus for only 20p each feeling quite tired but so pleased we had reached one of the highlights of our journey.

Hope to see you all for the next installment of our trip.

TTFN

Bibbley

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