News from China, Day 8 - The Great Wall

Apparently when Nixon came down from climbing the Great Wall of China in 1972, his remark was "The Great Wall is a great wall". We're not sure we can capture it quite so eloquently here, but nevertheless today was spent at the Great Wall of China.

What an experience ! First of all, we had no idea it would be so packed ! There must have been a hundred thousand people, mostly Chinese, on this particular section of the wall at Badaling. At times, especially near the top tower visible just over Melissa's head in the picture, we slowed to a mere shuffle, packed into a solid mass of fluid humanity. If anyone had been claustrophobic, they wouldn't have lasted long.

The other thing that struck us were the number of elderly Chinese doing the climb. It wasn't a simple stroll by any means ... we had to stop to catch our breath many times over the 45 minute hike, and we're (relatively) young and healthy. And yet we saw several people easily over seventy years old, with canes, booting it up the steep inclines. Any many of the vendors, who do sections of the climb back and forth several times an hour as they walk alongside potential buyers, were easily over sixty!

The Great Wall itself is 6,400 km long, in severals sections. The location that we were at is called Badaling. The "climb" was not to "get up" to the Great Wall, it was to "get up" the mountain "on" the Great Wall. The Wall was entirely paving stones and bricks, at times laid into flights of stairs, and at other times just a steep (maybe 30 degree ?) flat incline. We decided we wanted to make it to "the top", which meant to make it up through three watchtowers to the highest point in the area.

The watchtowers were formerly occupied by the Emperor's soldiers and bonfire beacons, but now have been annexed by the Free Market and its many street vendors. Guys playing Auld Lang Syne on Chinese flutes, or engraving your name on a genuine "I climbed the Great Wall" certificate, or selling Red Army knock-off uniform caps or 2008 Olympics T-shirts. The bricks of the Wall are covered, just covered, with graffiti etched into the stone in Chinese characters.

Jaime rode up the whole way asleep in the MEC backpack carrier. She woke up when we stopped for an ice cream treat when we got back to our starting point. Overall, she was very content, and mostly oblivious to the history of her native land which surrounded us. Jaime, Emily and David have been watching the Rugby World Cup in the hotel. Tomorrow she has her doctor's appointment, where hopefully she will get a clean bill of health and will be ready for Canada !