The Grrrrrrreat Wall Of China

Phew! Everything was OK and it turned out that Haven wasn’t a knife-yielding scam merchant. Everything was still where we left it, including a sleepy Haven, when James ventured back into the “living room” room. We all got up and dressed, and went down to the hotel restaurant for a slap-up breakfast. Ironically both me and James plumped for the American breakfast whereas Haven went for the full English! It was a cracking breakfast too, one that we would need to give us energy for the next little tick on our to-do list – the Great Wall Of China!

Big breakfasts all round!

We said our farewell to Haven and promised that we would all keep in touch and we made our way to the metro (again) to get to Beijing North station, where the train would leave for the wall. We toyed with the idea of taking a tour from the hotel or checking online to see if there were any good ones, but we would have to pay much less than the £6 or so that it would cost us to go via train. Plus we wouldn’t have to get up at an un-Godly hour for a hotel pick-up at stupid o’clock in the morning. But it wouldn’t be as simple as we had thought, or at least as simple as The Man In Seat 61 said it would be. For some reason we always get stuck behind someone who is refunding tickets or their credit card doesn’t work or they don’t understand Chinese/English/Chinglish, and in this instance it was the former. Added to the fact that when we got to the front, and had stopped some cheeky gits trying to squeeze in from the side (which is always the case too I might add…) the lady behind the glass informed us that we needed to buy the ticket from the booths upstairs. Great.

So when we finally got our tickets we found our train and climbed aboard. It was a pretty good train, as they go. Masses of legroom, which put a huge smile on my brother’s face. Plenty of room and spare seats, but the occasional wail from the child in the seats to our left, but you can’t have everything. It would take about an hour to get to Badaling station whereby we would jump off and walk up to the entrance to the Great Wall.

Leg roooooooooooom!

After some tunes, lunch, an episode of Mid Morning Matter and a nap we arrived at Badaling station. When we got off the train we were greeted not only by the crisp, cold air of the Chinese winter but also a number of touts flogging gloves, hats, scarves and socks. We were already pretty well kitted out so we ignored them and pushed on up to the Great Wall.

It wasn’t expensive to get a ticket, only about £4.50 which in the grand scheme of things is pretty good. It had already been an impressive walk up from the station, apart from the Subway and KFC that were nestled amongst the souvenir shops. When we were through the gate we had the choice of North or South wall, and we chose North, as the South was blinding us with the sun directly behind it.

They're everywhere!!

It was unbelievable to be there, standing on the Great Wall Of China. Typing it out now it still feels odd that I can say that as it is without doubt one of the most famous “things” I guess you can use, in the world. It is truly stupefying when you stand there and see the swarms of people hiking up and down it, and the sheer scale of the thing is just unbelievable.

There are no words.....

I had made a comment the day before, something along the lines of “why did we choose Beijing in winter” as it has been the coldest part of our trip to date. I think visiting the Great Wall in winter has gone someway to softening that blow as it was just beautiful in the bright blue sky and sunshine beaming down on us. We were thoroughly wrapped up so after a few minutes walking along/up the wall we were peeling off the layers to get some cool air onto us. The wall just kept going on and on and on. And then it stopped. There was a flimsy “Police” ribbon across the wall that meant nobody would be going any further. I assumed that it was because there was still snow on that part of the wall and people may injure themselves trying to walk along it. So it was at that point that all the hikers turned round and headed back to the start point.

Even better with the snow on it

By the time we got back to the start it was getting lateish and we had the choice of two trains to catch – leave then and catch the early one, or do the South Wall and catch the later one. We went for the latter option and set off onto South Wall.

It was indeed getting late, and the sun was starting to fall on that lower part of the wall. As we began our climb up the South Wall we noticed that there were far fewer people climbing with us. In fact, we noticed that there wasn’t anyone at all! As we looked back to the start point it seemed like there was nobody else on the South Wall and that most people were heading home. Would it be possible that they were closing? Would we get “locked in” on the Great Wall Of China?

Where is everyone???

No, we wouldn’t. We saw a few other people round the corner, and a few more clambering up behind us. We pressed on through the cold and fading light. There was a lot more wall to see, and many more mountains surrounding us that would surely give some fantastic photos. In some areas there was still plenty of snow; snow that had fallen over a week ago that had caused the deaths of a number of people in the Beijing area, and it wasn’t about to melt just yet. We reached the end point of the South Wall and waited for the sun to finally set behind the mountains and boy was it worth it! Sunrise at the Taj Mahal is fantastic and sunset on the Great Wall Of China is just as breath-taking.

Simply breath-taking

It was getting cold as the sun had set so we power-walked our way back to the start point. We managed to get our train back to Beijing with no problems at all and got back to our hotel later than originally planned, but still in time for us to nip across the road to “Helens” a backpacker hostel-cum-restaurant. It had been a long day so we retired back to the Leo Courtyard and had a relaxed evening. I began my search for accommodation in Kathmandu, but due to China vs Google it was a very stressful process.