Aylmer to Zazzoo and Beyond: December 2010

After the Jade factory we continued on to the Great Wall of China.

There are several options for visiting the Great Wall in the Beijing area.

Click map to enlarge.
The nine locations most frequented by tourists are:

The different sections of Beijing's Great Wall serve to satisfy many different interests.

If you want to experience the culture and enjoy the beauty of the Great Wall, meandering along the bricks of the Badaling Great Wall is your first choice. It is famous for its deep-rooted culture, magnificent sights and complete military facilities - the essence of the Great Wall. You may find many pictures of it in magazines and guide books and printed on stamps. Considered the must-see section of the Great Wall, it is often flocked with visitors especially during holidays.

Try to avoid the peak seasons or visit the Mutianyu Great Wall instead. It is even more beautiful and has fewer tourists. If you are nostalgic for old times, the Simatai and Gubeikou sections should be on your itinerary. These two sections are well maintained in their original states. The strong, primitive walls enhance the beauty of the wilderness.

If you are energetic and daring, adventures on the Huanghuacheng and Jiankou sections await you. The steep peaks and broken bricks will challenge your courage and curiosity. Remember to bring complete a mountaineering outfit, food and water. Water is unavailable on the wild sections.

Our tour package took us to the most popular, most visited, most crowded section of the wall, Badaling.

From Wikipedia:

Badaling (Chinese: 八达岭; Chinese: 八達嶺; Chinese: Bādálǐng) is the site of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of urban Beijing city in Yanqing County, which is within the Beijing municipality. The portion of the wall running through the site was built during the Ming Dynasty, along with a military outpost reflecting the location's strategic importance. The highest point of Badaling is Beibalou (traditional Chinese: 北八樓), approximately 0.63 miles (1,015 m) above sea level.

The portion of the wall at Badaling has undergone heavy restoration, and in 1957 it was the first section of the wall to open to tourists. Now visited annually by millions, the immediate area has seen significant development, including hotels, restaurants, and a cable car. The recently completed Badaling Expressway connects Badaling with central Beijing. Line S2, Beijing Suburban Railway, served people who wanted to go to the Great Wall from Beijing North Railway Station. People can buy tickets at Beijing North Railway Station to Badaling Station. A bus also runs frequently from Deshengmen to Badaling.

It was here that President Richard Nixon and his wife, accompanied by Vice Premier Li Xiannian, visited on February 24, 1972, during his historic journey to China.^[1] It was also the part of the wall climbed by Mao Zedong and other 370 international dignitaries and celebrities.

Badaling and the expressway were the site of the finishing circuit of the Urban Road Cycling Course in the 2008 Summer Olympics. Laps of the circuit passed through gates in the wall.

Here are the photos from our visit. The bus ride from Jade factory in Beijing wasn't that eventful, urban sprawl and the ubiquitous smog, but as we got closer to Badaling we were treated to our first glimpse of this historic and magnificent structure. We drove past some other sections of the the Great Wall that were on quite a steep incline. You would certainly get in some cardio exercise scaling these sections. (Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, they were taken through the slightly dirty windows of the moving bus.)

You can see in the hazy distance the Guard Towers on the tops of each of the hills in the photo above.

These areas looked interesting enough but we were told we were going to a better location.

What manpower it must have taken to carry all the materials to build on on these steep slopes.

Looks like quite a climb, eh?

Once we had taken the exit from the highway for Badaling things really slowed down. The little winding road was congested with buses, cars and people on foot.

We were headed for the VIP parking adjacent to the Wall. For those walking it was a long uphill trek.

The parking really was at a very convenient location. It made it much easier for the elderly and/or handicapped to have access to the joy of standing on one of the Wonders of the World. We had a wheelchair for Mom/Granny, she is completely ambulatory but she is so short, her wee 94 year old legs tire quickly, consequently we used the chair throughout the trip so that she could save her strength for when she really needed it.

We left the parking area and headed to the entrance. There was a large stone paved plaza where the group gathered before showing our tickets and entering the site. Above on the mountainside was a large sign (reminiscent of the Hollywood sign), One World One Dream, welcoming the world to China, home of the 2008 Olympics.

Bob decides Mom should push him for a change.

We had to go inside this wall to get to the ticket entry gate. Inside this inner plaza was the ticket gate, vendors, refreshments, souvenir shops and security guards.

Once past the hen up a flight of stairs to more shops and snack bars and a scenic over look.

We paused on this level, half way up, to wait for our entire group to be rounded up so that we could take a photo.

From this vantage point, above, you can see part of the plaza where we entered and the tops of some of the buses down in the parking area, and this is our group, just one big happy family.

We then climbed the last flights of stairs and there we were, at long last, standing atop the Great Wall of China.

I grew up in a home of very limited means. Ten of us lived in a two bedroom home and for a time we had no bathroom. We had an 'out house' which we continued to use even after the bathroom was completed. With that many people in one house your 'bathroom time' was very limited. The worst was making the trip out there in the dead of winter in the middle of the night. Burrr.

Although were were cramped together and resources were few there was much love to go around. Nevertheless, our parents taught us the golden rule. encouraged us to seek out knowledge and tried to instill a good work ethic in us.

In the bedroom that four of us shared. You can see the wallpaper with all sorts of animals - Giraffes, Elephants, Tigers etc. Here I am standing on the top bunk with my sister Barbara (she is still handy with a pair of scissors) and the top of Donald's head. On the wall to my right there was a large map of the Unite States and a world map. We used to, as kids, test each other on our geographic knowledge. While in Elementary School, I could draw a pretty good map of the US depicting all of the States including the State Capitols and their locations.

I used to stare at those maps for hours dreaming about and imagining myself traveling to all of the exotic locations. As I grew older and began to understand the limits that money or the lack thereof places on you...I never imagined that my dreams could ever come to fruition. But now, over a half century later, I have been very blessed (thanks to the ethics and values instilled in me by my parents so long ago) to have traveled to many of those spots on the map that I used to dream about. An extra bonus was that I was able to fulfill one of those dreams and share that experience with my mother who taught us to be all that we can. I only wish that my father could have lived long enough to have joined us on this trip.

Anyway, a life long dream lived for this once (and still) little boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

That's me on the right and my older brother Donald on the left posing with our Sunday School class way back around '55.

Had I made it China and the Great Wall as the little boy above I'm sure I'd have looked something like this little girl, seen below. Awestruck and amazed if not slightly dazed.

Well, enough about me and the old times. Let's get back to the Wall.

There were a lot of people there. A lot!

Once again there was the ever-present smog. Below are photos I enhanced to eliminate some of the effects of the smog.

Always looking for a unique perspective.

A little Chinese graffiti or tagging (below).

Bob and Raylene brought a copy of their local newspaper. It has a feature where if you take a picture of yourself doing something unique or in some exotic location while holding a copy of the paper, they would publish it in one of their issues.

It was time to explore, Bob & Raylene went east toward the Olympic sign

and mom/granny, Dee Anna & I went west.

We paused in one of the guard towers.

Then we continued our ascent along the wall westward (behind me in the photo below) to the next guard tower.

Pushing mom's chair up the steep incline wasn't that easy. People thought I was crazy as you can see by the look of those in the photo above. I am so out of shape and winded easily. I had gained a lot of weight after my cancer treatment. (Update: Since our return I have lost about 20 lbs. I am working on losing another 20 - 30 lbs. Wish me luck. I have been in remission for nearly 3 years now.)

We finally made it up to the next tower.

The inside of one guard tower looked pretty much like the next.

It would have been nice to continue further but our time on the wall was running short.

As we headed back we could see down below where we had started out...at the parking area to the right of the Chinese flag.

At the same time Bob and Raylene were on their way back from the heights of the other direction.

After so much anticipation it was sad that our time on the wall was so brief.

All too soon we were back in the parking area boarding the bus for the return to Beijing. but not before taking in one last look at this amazing architectural achievement. Did I say there were a lot of people there?

The road on the way down was just as crowded, if not more, that it was on the way up. We did see a couple of collisions where a car had gotten squeezed between two buses.

It appeared that the lines painted on the roads were merely suggestions in China.

On the way back to the city we, of course, passed by the same sections of the Wall that we had passed earlier as we arrived, but now we saw them from an entirely different perspective. Not only had the physical perspective changed as we saw them from a different direction but we now also had whole new perspective due to our experience of having actually set foot on this incredible piece of the history of mankind.

If I should ever return to China I would like to spend time exploring the many different sections along the nearly 4,000 miles of the Wall. That is what truly interests me, you can keep the keep the silk, pearl & jade markets. I am intrigued by the culture, the people, the anthropology, the architecture, the archeology, the history. Yes, I would like to see more of the thousands of miles of what remains of the Great Wall of China. To pique your curiosity here is a myriad of photos from some of those other sections of the Wall that are still standing and waiting for your visit...

The Great Wall at Badaling.