The Wall

Beijing

A few of us from the hostel took a trip a couple of hours north to see the Great Wall today. And it really is a great wall. The stretch we visited was pretty much free of tourists so there were plenty of quiet spots to admire the spectacle. Eschewing the cable car we decided to walk up the hill and even for someone as unfit as me it only took twenty minutes or so to get up the thousand steps. Lots of dodgily translated Chinese warning signs ("no push, no run, no horse play!") kept us amused on the way up, then we spent hours walking slowly along and looking at the amazing views. I'd still be there now if our minibus driver hadn't told us we had to set off for the city again at two to beat the awful rush hour traffic.

The route the wall takes is what surprised me. It snakes around at high altitude, up and down steep slopes and usually over the top of the mountains. Why couldn't they just build it on a flat bit? Surely that would have been much easier? The way it was built is certainly dramatic and I'm sure the advancing Mongols were impressed by the sight, but it didn't stop them marching over and through China. But although it was useless for the purpose it was actually built for and you can't see it from space after all, it still looked pretty good seeing it for real.