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The Great Wall: Jinshanling to SimataiOct 24, 2005
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2Yuan: smile long time
| He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man. - Mao Zedong Well I can claim to be a true man now. One of the wonders of the world, the only man made structure visible from space, the Great Wall of China is an amazing monument to human perseverance and endurance. The Great Wall is actually not a single wall but rather a connected network of separate walls that were built by different Emperors over the centuries. Parts of the wall have been restored and are now tourist traps. Other parts in more remote areas have been abandoned and are little more than a pile of bricks and stones. I chose to do a hike from Jinshanling to Simatai. It's a 10K hike on the top of the wall, most of it anyway. In a few spots the wall was in such a state of disrepair that it was too dangerous to walk on it. After an almost 3 hour bus ride during which I had to shut my eyes in horror several times and almost habituated to the sound of the horn, which our driver used generously and profusely. Chinese truly use all 4 lanes of a 2 lane road. At one point our bus was being passed on the right shoulder, in the oncoming traffic lane and on the left shoulder at the same time. That did not phase our drier at all. With one hand holding his mobile to his ear and holding a perpetual lit cigarette in the other he managed to pilot the bus up and down twisty mountain road while honking the horn every 10 seconds. That's the talent. With the traffic excitement behind us and filled with anticipation I was the first out of our group to scale up the wall. I was greeted by a threesome of the local farmers who were supplementing their income by selling postcards and T-shirts on the wall. Their selling tactic was very simple. They would just follow you closely until you got fed up and had to buy something to send them away. After managing to loose the initial walk-alongs by picking up speed I started to completely ignore any come on further up on the wall, which seemed to do the trick and I walked away souvenir-free. I did have to pay a funny old man with a long pipe for taking a picture with him, oh well it was worth it. The solitary walk along the wall was what I really looked forward to. Seeing the seemingly endless continuity of the wall riding the rollercoaster of the landscape into the distance filled me with awe and wonder. I set on the ancient stones and imagined what it might have been like to labor on the wall carrying stones and bricks sometimes up sheer cliffs. Or what a Chinese soldier might have felt as he loaded his crossbow observing the barbarian tribes from the North far below him at the bottom of the wall. I completed the hike to Simatai in 2 hours and since I had more time I continued to climb up for another 12 towers. The section past Simatai was much steeper and gave me quite a workout. As I reached the end of the official walking section I saw the wall continue climb up almost vertical cliffs. I wondered why would anybody need to build a wall on top of the impassible cliffs. And then in occurred to me that the Wall was not only a military fortification but also a part of psychological deterrent. The wall in all its magnificence could have only be build by a powerful nation, by the people not to be trifled with. |
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