The Great Wall

“He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man” - Mao Zedong

No trip to China is complete with out visiting the iconic Great Wall so with that in mind we bid farewell to our friends in Macau & Shanghai and packed our bags (filled with warm sweaters, gloves, scarves and toques) for Beijing. With our pre booked tickets in hand (for those who don’t know after all these years of travelling abroad my husband has become a train ticket booking Ninja and always secures the best possible seats at the best possible price... in advance!!! He cut his teeth in India so China's train system is child’s play for him!) we boarded the Bullet Train from Shanghai to Beijing which at 310km per hour only took 5.5 hours. We arrived at dusk to Tiananmen Square and as we walked through the hutongs (alleyways) of Qianmen to our hostel it was very apparent that we had left the modernity and glamour of Shanghai behind and were now in communist China. After settling into our hostel we (on a hot tip from our Aussie friends Dave & Tat) booked the “Secret Wall Tour” through the Leo Hostel

which left the next day at 8am. The next morning we set out in with 7 other travellers in an attempt to beat the early morning Beijing traffic. The section of wall that we went to is about 2.5 hours outside of Beijing and parts of it are restored and some parts are not. We started the climb at about 10:30am and after 2 hours of straight up (and when I say straight up that is no joke) we made to the 6^th and final tower in that section of wall. It was clear, cold (well actually not that cold once you got going!) and the views from the top were spectacular. Everyone in our group made it to the 6^th tower... we were all huffing, puffing and total red faced. It was an intense climb... so many stairs!!! Who knew The Great Wall was all stairs!!! I my mind I envisioned it as a flat toped wall… up and down, yes! But so many stairs, no! On the way up we only passed 3 other people so we had The Wall all to ourselves which is basically unheard of… yay, for the Secret Wall Tour! At the top we

enjoyed a few sips of water, an orange, some photos, sent texts message to our family in Canada and then it was time to head back down... our legs were shaking the whole way down.

The Wall was a great experience and in retrospect we got very, very lucky as the winter smog of Beijing has now set in rendering the visibility to only a few meters. Also, while red faced and out of breath at the top of The Wall Dan and I came to the conclusion that when visiting the different 7 Wonders of The World (so far we have been to The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Petra in Jordan, the Taj Mahal in India and now the Great Wall in China… check, check, check, check… 4 down!), the more effort you put in as the traveller the more spectacular the wonder seems therefore "The Wall" is pretty high up on our list.

After our trip to The Wall we spent the next four days we pounding the pavement (with sore and tired legs!) checking out all the major sites in Beijing including: The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, The Summer Palace, Lama Temple, the many

miles of Beijing’s hutongs and the National Museum. Beijing, although extremely cold (we even woke up to snow one morning!), was a great city and we enjoyed our time immensely.

Now it is onward to Xi’an to visit the Terracotta Army…

Until next time…