Pretty much our first view of the wall. Looks fairly intact, right? Wrong!!
"The beginning of the end"; it was effectively the last day of the tour. And what better way to celebrate this than to go for a little wander down the most famous object in the Eastern Hemisphere (discounting the Kremlin, Sydney Opera House, Mount Everest, Belgian Chocolate, Chernobyl ... etc!) - The Great Wall of China!
It's not considered one of the Seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World. This is because the Ancient Greeks, who formulated the list initially, didn't actually know about it, having never been there. But if they had, it surely would have been!!
Having said which ... the initial wall was constructed by that man Qin in the 210s BC, initially to use as a boundary between his newly-combined empire and the Mongolian wastes beyond. However it never really served that well as a frontier - guards being easily bribed etc. - but instead served as a useful means of easy trans-Chinese communication and transportation.
Over the years the wall fell into disrepair. Later Chinese dynasties maintained and improved sections of it, especially around the 1300s-1600s; by then little remained of the original Qin wall. Hence, though the wall as a concept is over 2000 years old, the section we walked was genuine 15th century!
It was about a three-hour coach ride to the wall from Beijing. There are closer sections but these are, in the main, covered with tourists. The section we went to was a much quieter spot, at Simatai. The entrance was small and unassuming - and we seemed to be the only tourists there! There were a few local vendors blocking our way though - but we ignored them.
The climb up onto the wall was very steep, up a long flight of well-worn steps, so we were quite exercised before we started! We stepped up onto a landing, and we could see the wall stretching out over the hills in front of us. Because of the age of the wall we could see in one of the nearby towers some recent modernisation - two different sorts of stone making up the wall of the tower.
We walked along the wall at our own pace; we kept very roughly in a group but some walked quicker than others, in general.
The walk was pretty steep at times, both going up and going down. It's little wonder this was one of the less visited spots! Of course, this remoteness and distinct lack of people added to its charm. I think it would have lost something if it had been as overpopulated as other parts are forced to be. This was the wall how it was, how it was supposed to be.
Of course that is not to say that the wall was completely deserted. Where there's tourism, there's a postcard seller. Or, more aptly, a barbarian horde of them! They followed us along the wall; in general we kind of ignored them, but one thing I will say about them, as well as being persistent they were also pretty fit!! They kept up with us, were ahead of us, and yet they were carrying bags, some quite heavy with bottles of drink. At one point I needed one and was rather impressed by the way that, even in warm temperatures after a long climb, it was basically a block of ice!!
We walked for a couple of hours then stopped for lunch. In theory we tried to stop in a place where there were no postcard sellers but in practice they didn't bother us during lunchtime anyway!
The second half of the walk was similar to the first, except for a couple of places where we had to walk right off the wall and along a couple of country paths. Owing to the dilapidated state of the wall, some of it was actually "broken" and needed repair.
In total we must have walked for maybe five miles, but it took us just over four hours, plus half an hour for lunch. This was due to the terrain; at one point we had a long steep downhill stretch where the "stairs" were merely bits of stone or pebble! Another uphill section, although smooth and well-maintained, rose at an angle that felt like more than 45°! Fortunately it wasn't very long.
We were all pretty spread out by the end, so those of us near the front stopped for a bit. At which point it started to rain!! Oh well, we'd been lucky so far, we were near the end, and anyway it didn't last too long.
Right at the end of the walk, when everyone else had caught up, we started our decent down the wall. Most of us took the pathway down but two adventurous souls took an alternative route. There was a cable slide, like on the Krypton Factor, and Dan and Dee said they'd try it if the other one did. So they did! LOL! Didn't fancy it myself, besides I'd just bought an ice cream lolly ... which was actually a bit naff but who cares!
The journey back to Beijing was a comfortable three hour jaunt - but before we left we waited at the bottom in the sort of tourist village. James and Andy bought Great Wall T-shirts, I had a bit of food in a café - it had dried up by then and the sun even came out!
After resting in the hotel for a little while we all went out for a celebrationary last night meal, and what better way to round things off in Beijing than with Peking Duck? We took taxis from our hotel to this really posh, swanky hotel where the doormen opened our taxis' doors. But lol we then took a short walk from that hotel into the nearby side-streets, another of the hutong areas! (Bet that frustrated the doormen!)
The restaurant itself was a small cosy affair buried deep within the hutong. It was also pretty crowded. Jane had booked in advance; unfortunately a previous group of people were still in situ and didn't look as if they were going to leave; very nice for them but those were our seats!!! They did have two smaller tables free, but that meant we would be in different rooms and not all seated together, the normally cheerful Mirella was the most visibly disappointed at this, as she felt (quite reasonably) that we should all be sitting together on this, our last night. So what we arranged to do was to eat separately, in two rooms (smokers in one, non-smokers in the other), then all merge into one room after we'd finished eating.
The meal itself was quite cosy and friendly but nothing memorable; another banquet style selection of dishes but including the Peking duck, which was quite nice, but ... I dunno, maybe I just felt it was all a bit of an anticlimax? One or two of the group hadn't handled Peking duck before but they quickly learned the way!!
After the meal, the smokers joined us and we had a bit of a natter about the trip, and what we'd thought of it. It was very strange to think that, in 24 hours time, half of them would be home! We sat and discussed what we'd enjoyed about it, what our good memories would be, etc etc. We also had a little presentation for Jane, since not only was she our tour leader but this was one of the last tours she'd be doing before "retiring".
At length we decided to continue the celebration at the hotel bar, so we ambled through the hutong, grabbed the nearest taxis, and went back. After briefly freshening up we all sat round a large table in the bar. It was interesting to note that seated nearby was another tour group, also going through the "goodbye phase". We commented that their goodbyes were getting just a bit silly (mainly with regard to multitudinous photos!) - cause we were doing the same!
Slowly, one by one, people drifted off to bed. Quite a number of the party were to be leaving the next day, some on quite early flights. As they left, they went around the table saying goodnight and hugging everyone etc. Daniel, who wasn't due to leave until Tuesday, commented that he wasn't very good with goodbyes, especially long goodbyes. Eventually it was just the lads left; most of us were still around tomorrow so it didn't feel quite the end that it had been. It was still strange though to think that we would no longer be on tour tomorrow, and that it was just us.
Mind you, at least we had it comfy. The two Dettes were off on a train back to Hong Kong (27 hours!!); we told them to take the requisite amount of alcohol! They threatened to wake us up when they were leaving!