Climbing the ever so great wall of China

After several fist crunchingly frustrating attempts at train/plane ticket booking via the internet, Alex and I experienced our first Beijing related Blue Square Shaped Victory (BSSV): purchasing our soft sleeper tickets at Shanghai railway station…at the English speaking kiosk. Our train departed at 8pm Monday night and would arrive in Beijing at 8 the following morning. As usual, I over packed, unsure of what to expect from the Capital city I had heard so much about (what attire goes most appropriately with scorpion munching, anyway?) As we dragged my unnecessarily heavy suitcase along the platform and gazed in through the carriage windows, our trepidation at what our sleeping arrangements would be grew stronger. What a glorious surprise, therefore, when we arrived at our compartment to find two comfortable (ish) bunk beds complete with slippers and clean (hooorah) bedding! Alex managed to successfully bully the Chinese business man who attempted to camp in with us and the whole 12 hour journey was spent sleeping in relative peace.

Our cabin

Our first mission was to make our way through the Beijing rush hour of intense people traffic to the bus station where we would begin our journey to the Great Wall. Immediately Beijing felt different to Shanghai. There was the same over population issue and similar sardine train effect (several times I’ve been late to work because I’ve been unable to get off the metro). However, it was the lack of something rather than it's presense that was so immediately obvious. Shanghai is so intoxicatingly electric and progressive. Driving through down town Shanghai is like entering the internet, flanked on both sides by binary code. There is nothing in this world quite like Shanghai and leaving it can create a drastic contrast. In comparison Beijing is grey and polluted: a beautiful and interesting depiction of the past but a sense of energy towards the future seems to be lacking.

The bus journey (BSSV no. 2) out of Beijing and into the Northern China country took about two hours; we finally arrived at a bus station in the middle of the countryside, strange that it can feel so remote just outside one of the busiest and most polluted cities in the world. We were collected by a driver and taken up the steep and narrow canyon road into the mountains where we would be spending our first night. Our first view of the Great Wall (aside from the miniature mock wall randomly placed on a roundabout) was when we stopped to use a public restroom.  Above the stink ridden building and rising high into the mountains was one of the seven manmade wonders of the world. ‘Wonder’, ‘great’…there was a lot of hype and expectation leading up to this moment and as we made our way further into the mountains and the wall continued to expand before us, it did not disappoint. It is truly an impressive structure, segments of wall broken up by large turrets and look out spots. The terrain on which this section was built is dangerous and steep; it was almost unbelievable to think about how it had been built and how many lives were lost in the process. The driver drove like any self-respecting Chinese man would- with courage and insanity, turning sharply around bends and teetering dangerously close to the ridge of the road. I chatted to him in Chinese (BSSV no. 3) about the very limited subjects I know how to chat about, as Alex gazed out of the window, silently praying for all four wheels to remain on the ground. Alex: I’m glad I didn’t bring my mum, she would be freaking out right now.’

 We were meant to be sleeping at a tiny hostel on the side of the mountain, outhouse and view included in the price. However, despite my recent battle on the great grasslands of Inner Mongolia, a night in sub zero conditions didn’t appeal and since the room available had no heating and the bed was made of bricks...we opted to sleep slightly further up the mountain in a tiny village. The village comprised of about five shack-like houses surrounded by farm land and the scene brought back happy memories of Sri Lanka and Nuwara Eliya.

The village where we stayed

 The bed took up most of the room and was made of bricks and wood. The underneath was an open space which served as a heating system, circulating hot air brought in from a large fire directly outside the room. It was an incredibly uncomfortable night’s sleep but waking up to see the great wall at dawn was completely worth it. The house was owned by a Chinese family and we ate our breakfast while watching their small children playing in the yard.

The start of our climb

We began our four hour climb on a non-restored section of the wall which was pretty damn dangerous, really. Me: Alex, I’m not sure we’re supposed to be on this section of the wall. Please don’t jump up and down on this rickety, wooden swing bridge suspended across the canyon. Alex, please don’t do the goofy dance right now in the middle of this very old, half broken, rickety swing bridge over a god damn canyon with a 30 foot drop into icy water. Alex, STOP IT!!! The climb was pretty arduous in parts, some of it being almost vertical inclines and a few times we had to get off the wall because it was in such a bad state. We then had to kind of scale the mountain side, using discarded cigarette butts and bottles as reassuring signs of successful adventures before. The benefit of being on a section which we later found out was indeed closed: there was not another soul around. Just us surrounded by shockingly beautiful nature- mountains, gorges and an actually blue sky, thankfully free of the thick layer of pollution which acts as sunglasses for the whole of Beijing. At around 8am the sun began to peep out over the mountains and by 9am it had fully risen, dissipating the mist which hung thickly below. Alex: 'There are seven billion people on this planet; I just can’t believe that none of them are on this bit of the wall with us.' I was massively grateful for it- the experience was incredible.