Great Wall of China

I lost count of the number of greats in that quote, but I was looking through the net for a nice quote about the great wall, and thought I’d share it here 🙂 .

Now Richard Nixon might not have put across his thoughts very eloquently, but I find I agree with the meat of what he’s saying. I came back from China super impressed with the development and the people, and just about everything. It’s truly well on its way to being a superpower, if it’s not one already.

These thoughts though are fodder for another post. In today’s post, I want to focus on the grandeur of the Great Wall.

A bit of info about the Great Wall

Stretching 6000km in a dotted line across China, the Great Wall was begun in the 5th century BC and was still being built up to the 16th century. Today’s surviving sections, placed end to end, would link New York with Los Angeles.

The Chinese have always walled their cities. I saw a similar wall in Xi’an around the old town, the Great Wall was simply an extension of that practice to protect themselves from the ravaging Mongols and any other invaders.

For much of its history, the Great Wall was hated. And thousands died in the making of it. There is a Chinese poem that expresses this sentiment.

So yes, all that grandeur did come at great cost. I don’t want to criticize though. It was a different time, a different mind-set.

Visiting the Great Wall from Beijing

Beijing is generally considered as the point of embarkation for any of the Great Wall tours. Multiple sections of the wall can be accessed from close to Beijing. The most popular tours start from:

• Badaling: It’s the easiest section of the wall to access and consequently the most popular. A minus is that it’s extremely crowded.
• Mutianyu: Another popular option. This is closer to the airport than the city. This section of the wall has a cable car so this might be a good option for people who have issues with walking or climbing.
• Juyongguan: This is the option we chose, and more details available as you read on.

There are other access points as well. Read this post that provides more information.

Why we chose Juyongguan

Juyongguan is the closest to Beijing. It’s also newly renovated, so not too many rocks to stumble over. Plus, because most of the tour bus options prefer Badaling, I thought Juyongguan would be a quieter and saner experience.

Also, there is no cable car option in Juyongguan, which is exactly how I wanted it. We wanted to actually experience climbing the wall and do a significant amount of walking in peace.

Our experience

Juyongguan was everything we expected and more. There were no crowds, the climb was satisfyingly strenuous, the weather was beautiful, and the air was as fresh as it could be.

Here are some photos of our experience.

As you can see, the climb is steep. If you have knee or back issues, Juyongguan is not for you. Try Badaling or Mutianyu instead. But if you are reasonably fit, you don’t need to do any extra training to be able to climb this wall.

It took us about an hour to get to the top and after that it is a peaceful walk along the wall. Climbing down takes about 30 mins. All in all, keep about half a day for this experience. More if you want to linger. I really would have liked to spend the day and see the sunset from the wall, but that is not advisable, as getting down in the dark might be dangerous.

On the way up, there are several watch towers where you can stop to catch your breath and see the views down.

The views from the watch tower were something like this.

We never wanted to return back. It was so peaceful and beautiful at the top!