“I Climbed the Great Wall”

As part of our Chinese sojourn, our next visit was the most important and significant one for us. No visitor to China will return home without paying tributes to the ancient Chinese who toiled hard to create one of the wonders of the world, the Great Wall  of China. 

Known as 长城 (the long fortress) or 万里长城 (The long wall of 10,000 Li), the Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan, by the Yellow Sea to Jiayuguan Pass in the Gobi desert. The Great Wall is an astonishing feat of engineering and ingenuity of the ancient Chinese. The practice of building walls along China’s northern frontier began in 5th century BC and continued until the 16th century. The Chinese have walled their cities since earlier times and during the Era of the Warring States simply extended the practice to separate rival territories. The first emperor, Qin Shi  Huang, after having united China under one empire in 3rd century BC, joined and extended the sections to form one continuous defence against barbarian Mongol tribes. With the Ming dynasty, the wall’s upkeep became a priority, and from 14th to 16th century, military technicians worked on its reconstruction. The Ming wall is the one you see today.

The wall, 7 meters high and 7 meters thick with 25,000 battlements, served to bolster Ming sovereignty for a couple of centuries. It prevented the movement of the nomadic peoples of the distant minority regions and their plundering raids. Now this great monument is a great business. The restored sections of the wall are "besieged" daily by rampaging hordes of tourists, and touted by the government as a source of national pride. Its enduring image adorns all manner  of products, from wine to cigarettes and is even used on the visa stickers.

There are many sections of the Great Wall close to Beijing, including Badaling, Mutianyu, Simitai and Jinshanling. Some of them, such as Badaling, are teeming with people. We chose to go to Mutianyu instead to avoid the masses.

The Mutianyu Great Wall is a 3 km long section about 90 kilometers northeast of Beijing. We drove for nearly two hours along the expressway to reach Huairou, a small town at the foot of the wall. It was almost 2 o’clock when we reached there, so we stopped at Subway to grab a sandwich before getting on to the wall. Some tourist sites in and around Beijing – including remote ones such as Mutianyu – have popular fast food chains such as KFC, Subway or McDonalds, a welcome respite for people like us (especially Indians) who cannot eat a lot of Chinese food because of dietary restrictions.

Passing along a ridge through some lush green undulating hills, this part of the wall is well endowed with guard towers, built in 1368 and renovated in 1983. From the entrance, steep steps lead up to the wall, but we opted for the cable car to reach the wall. After a short walk through a rather touristy bazaar where locals were hawking everything from sun-dried fruit to t-shirts and curios, we reached the cable car stop.  

Seated on the cable car, one gets a rather majestic view of the territories all around. The wall goes up and down the green hills, punctuated by its watchtowers. In the distance, one could see the verdant mountain slopes.

Reaching the top was an exhilarating experience. The wall is pretty well-preserved and as you stand on top and watch the wall snake its way up and down the mountain peaks, you get lost in time. You can only imagine how it must have been like back in the day, with soldiers patrolling and guarding their territory. The wall runs across nearly 21,196 kilometres and was built over a period of 1,000 years! It is hard to imagine how anyone was able to build something like that over such diverse and difficult terrain.

We stayed on top of the wall for a while, climbing up and down, and trying to soak in the ambiance  We steered clear of the immensely steep stretches – if we went down those, we would have to endure a very arduous climb back up.

There is something to be said about tourist infrastructure in China. The Great Wall, from what we saw, was pristine and beautiful. Unlike a lot of historical places in India, the monument is kept clean – there is no rubbish anywhere. People don’t vandalize it – you don’t see youngsters etching their names on the wall. Once you are on the wall, you are not besieged by hawkers and touts – something that’s very common in India. The only exception is people selling water and cold drinks. Again, they don’t bug you. Because of this, you are able to appreciate the monument for what it really stands for. It was also interesting to see Chinese, young and old come out to appreciate the heritage of their great land!

Going down from the wall was another exhilarating experience. I chose to use the toboggan slide instead of the cable car. The toboggan slide zig-zags down the mountain slopes and you have to control it with a hand-held brake. Sliding down the valley was a refreshing  experience.

Back at the base, I bought a T-shirt. “I climbed the Great Wall,” it proclaimed. I deserved. it.