Wall

Writing gives me anxiety. That's why I let Amanda spin her words in my stead. The first thing that happened on the day we went to the Great Wall of China was funny. China is one hour behind Korea, we set all our devices (Amanda's watch) to this time except for Amanda's ipod, which was our wake up call. So when we thought we were waking up at 7 we actually woke up at 6. We asked a few confused middle aged man who spoke minimal English for breakfast before we realized our mistake and went back to sleep. The breakfast at our hostel wasn't bad, but wasn't particularly substantial even by Asian standards. We climbed into the minibus to go to the Great Wall and stopped at another hostel to change buses. We were the only people at our hostel who signed up for the grueling Jinshanling to Simatai hike as opposed to the supposedly flatter Ming Tombs/ Mutianyu walk. The bus ride took 3 hours from Beijing. It was bumpy and the streets were small. I actually slept, which never happens, so it must have been soothingly bumpy.

We picked up a guide not far from the Wall. He didn't speak too much English, I didn't see the point. The landscape was nice as far as we could see it, gradually rising hills, green and rocky, and much more corn than I expected. While the limited visibility from Beijing lifted slightly it didn't dissipate which was surprising as we climbed and the grayness of the cloudless sky continued. Of course the driver almost killed us several times, but we got there finally and got out of the bus. They offered a liter and a half of water and a snickers bar to everyone. We already had 3 liters of water in our bags and several snacks, we were prepared hikers undaunted by the extra weight of water. When we made it through the gates, anxious to get started, we received postcards with a small map detailing the route options. We could either hike up to the first tower and walk to the 22nd where we would descend, take a small shortcut and hike to the 5th tower or take the cable car and ascend quickly and effortlessly. Amanda considered the cable car, but I considered any shortcut a form of cheating and the only people we could cheat would be ourselves. She was concerned about her sensitivity to the sun and the extreme humidity which was already drawing the moisture out of our bodies like a dehumidifier as we were standing still. We compromised as we always do and hiked to the 5th tower.


On the way up we passed this sign. It will become relevant later. Seeing the great wall wasn't nearly as anticlimactic as other places I've seen and dreamed about. The Great Wall is mythologized as much as any structure on Earth, but not by me. It's a wonder that I was pretty surprised to be seeing. China never held much of a pull for me, but it was a great time and a logical choice for a short break from the Korean peninsula. I never really pictured going there as I always had pictured going to places like Italy and the Netherlands and the UK. Some places live up to the hype, most don't. I never thought I would see it so it ended up being pretty damn impressive but I imagine if you've always had your heart set on it then it might let you down. It's a damn impressive structure to be sure. It takes half an hour just to hike straight up the mountains it's built on top of. It's wide enough for 7 or 8 people to stand shoulder to shoulder on it. It has a tower, sometimes a two story tower about every .2 km and some of those are still standing. It's steeper than you want to climb let alone build. It's really something else, but like anything else you get used to being up there after an hour, and it becomes the road, like any other, you're walking on.


This is Amanda. She's wearing more layers than would be optimal in this heat and humidity, but she's afraid, and rightly so, that her fairest of fair skin will lobsterize in the invisible sun's rays. You can barely see to the hill in the background, but rest assured the sweat was pouring off everything with pores. This section of the wall was easy. The wall rose like a ramp. And although it became steep at times it was well cared for and rarely treacherous. The bricks looked nice and the towers were completely intact. The hike looked easy despite the aforementioned heat and the hawkers. Amanda looked like she was about to slap someone after a bottle of water was shoved in her face the tenth time. The pushed water on us after we had refused several times and were in the process of drinking our own water. It's a problem, we ignored them as much as they would allow us to ignore them.


Here's where the don't slip advice becomes relevant. Slipping is death and there are no handrails. We trekked up this section slowly, deliberately, and were mocked in German that I understood by some Germans who strode cavalierly down a slope like this (I don't know if it was this staircase or another one) who commented that Americans avoided difficult physical work and shouldn't undertake such a challenge. My German reaction time was not quick enough for retort. Our slowness was not from a lack of fitness but a will to live. On the first leg of the hike I took time to observe the scenery but here I was enjoying the challenge and the climb and how much I didn't care that I was sweating my entire shirt a different shade of green.

This is where the vending came to a head. If you look very closely at the top of those daunting stairs, which, let me assure you, are far more daunting from the top than the bottom not to mention the lack of a side wall to lean on or shield you from the sheer drop, you will see a man standing like an archer in the doorway. As we are climbing this staircase of doom, slowly, cautiously, he proceeds to yell about water and postcards. As for water, we have it. As for postcards, I'm concerned with not dying, shut the fuck up. He stood in the doorway as we were almost at the top hawking trivialities like a monk on a sacred mountain wearing a Def Leppard t-shirt. We refuse, stop, force him to go inside so we may complete the staircase of doom without having to step around a man standing directly in our way. When we enter the tower he's even more persistent, shoving water in our face and blocking our way as we try to avoid him and pass him saying, "No" in progressively louder, angrier voices. Despite his harassment of us; he is the one to lose his temper. "No, no, no, no" he shouts in an extremely loud and mocking tone. Twice he blocked Amanda as I skirted him so she got the brunt of his harassment and this is her last straw. Almost out the second door she stops turns around and yells at him, "Why are you shouting? Why are you shouting? We don't want any water. Go away." He continues yelling "No, no, no, no" like an asshole and we can hear it almost until we reach the next tower. There were only two left. The last one was full of women and a persistent child who really shouldn't have been forced into labor like that.

This is what it looks like against that charcoal sky. The descent took far longer than we expected, and our bodies were breaking. A 40 minute hike and we made it to the parking lot, nothing but a pebble bed, construction equipment and two hawkers. We saw a few others from our group and sat down by them. I bought a beer from a hawker and celebrated our trek. We were subsequently harassed by a bee that would not leave us alone for anything. When our minibus arrived and the rest of our party, who had chosen the full 1-22 tower trek, arrived more hawkers followed them. As we piled into the vehicle they attempted to follow shoving t shirts and water into our faces while we refused. We forced them out almost physically and escaped. Exhausted, drenched, stinky, we started our 3 hour ride back to Beijing.

The mini-bus and tour cost 320 Yuan which was a pretty fair deal. It was an all day affair, and we saw the part of the wall that we wanted to see. It was unfinished, and though we met plenty of other tourists on the way there were times between towers when we were completely alone. Just us and the Great Wall and the mountains stretching off into the distance that can only be imagined.