Who'd have thought you could do a day trip to the Great Wall of China for less than £10!
From Beijing you can do organised tours of the Wall; you get picked up from your hotel driven about and I think they cut up your food and wipe your arse for you too. We didn't do a tour. They're triple the price you ought to pay and you only get a limited amount of time to explore.
We took two local buses from Tiananmen Square, central Beijing, to a section of the wall known as Badaling. The first bus was the number five, which leaves from the top of Qiananmen East Road. It took a lot of gesticulating to pedestrians and allowing someone to write directions on my hand in Chinese before we found the right stop. The bus cost 1 Yuan (10p) and took about 45 minutes to reach Deshengmen outer city bus station. From Deshengmen we took the 919 to Badaling (cost: 12 Yuan/ £1.20) it took approx. 1 hour 20 minutes.
Amazingly, and considering it's one of the 'wonders of the world', the entrance fee to the Great Wall is cheaper than a tall frappuccino in Starbucks! 45 Yuan (£4.50).
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| The highest peak you can see is the Eighth Tower, took us 30 minutes climbing to get up there. |
Once you're on the wall you're free to roam for as far and long as you're legs will carry you. We went farther than I had planned thanks to Ric - "let's try and get to where there are no tourists" (NB. this is not possible).
At first we were disappointed that the weather was wet and cloudy. However, after climbing what seemed like millions of steps we were grateful for the cooler weather; had it been sunny we would have overheated and given up well before we got to the top of the first tower!!
My first impression of the Wall was, to be honest, not that spectacular; it didn't seem that big, it was so crowded with tourists and every tower smelt like it had been used as a toilet for the past 100 years. However, the further we trekked the more impressed I became and once the rain clouds lifted it was I was quite in awe. The fact that it goes on and on for as far as the eye can see; the dangerously steep ascents and descents; the seemingly the pointless route it snakes around the mountains.
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| Up and down, so steep that my legs hurts for three days after. |
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| Amazing lady so old she probably built the wall - wasn't even out of breath after climbing some stairs that almost killed me and Ricardo. |
