Today at 1:30pm sees us on a train (later than the one we’d have liked, but faffage took precedent) to Badalung, it’s an hour’s train ride and check this out:
Suck on THAT British Rail, take a hint from China on this one. Sat fully upright my feet could barely touch the seat in front (we found out later that they swivel too, if you want to face the direction of travel, or avoid the sun in your eyes).
45 minutes or so into the journey I caught my first glimpse of what we came to see, the Great Wall of China, my first wonder of the world. Seen from the train that was travelling in valleys between the hills and mountains you couldn’t see how far it went, still, that first sight was great :o).
I have to say a word about the hostel that we stayed in in Badalung, it’s called the Great Wall Courtyard Hostel and it was fantastic. The first thing they did for us was to pick us up from the other end of Badalung when we inevitably turned left instead of right out of the train station, and they didn’t even charge us!.....unusual. We also recieved a free beer with dinner (large beers, one was enough for two), the attentions of a friendly, gimpy, slobbery Alsatian that always tried its luck at dinnertime, lovely traditional Chinese courtyard surroundings, and a free thank you coca cola for our journey home. The owner (I assume) was a lovely lady called Cheung, we like Cheung.
Anyway! We had arrived in time to see sunset at the wall, so off we toddled once we’d checked in and warmed ourselves with Jasmine tea.
Here’s another example we can take from China, it costs the best part of £20 per person to get into London Zoo. Less than £4 equivalent for the Great Wall! Can you see London Zoo from space?? I don’t THINK so! Get over it London, you’re not that great.
Sunset at the wall was lovely.....unfortunately, my camera battery took the opportunity to die on me....what spectacularly bad timing! Still, I knew I was coming back the next day, no harm, no foul. We walked a little way up the wall to get a nice view of the sunset and Sara took some pics, before we headed back for noodles and dumplings, beer and bed. The courtyard part of the hostel was freezing, covered though it is, but the room was soooo warm. It was the best nights sleep I’ve had in a while.
The next morning we were up at 8 to get an earlyish start on the wall. The wind had picked up since the day before and it was pretty nippy. We were some of the only Westerners brave enough to face the elements at that time of year. Had I known what the elements were in advance perhaps I would have had my own reservations. Ignorance is bliss so they say.
Wind is the element I’m referring to. The wall climbs uphill in both directions from the point at which you climb on at Badalung. We chose to climb the opposite way to which we had the night before, variety being the spice of life and all that malarkey. When you’re on the wall, you can see which side China lay on (the East) and which side Genghis and his mates would have been on. The Western side of the wall his higher walls with gaps for archers, and holes, presumably for boiling water or tar.....perhaps worse if the Chinese defenders were of such a mind! The Eastern wall is much lower. Now, the wind was coming from the West, or Northwest, which meant that I felt constantly in danger of being blown over this piddly little wall with its token banister. I know Asians are reputed to be shorter than Westerners in general, but even they’d have to be hunchbacked to make use of these. Praps when originally built, the wall was manned by child and/or dwarf warriors. I bet Ghenghis had a giggle at that.
This fight against the wind was taken to extremes at the steep points of the wall, at which points I felt I’d be better off going on all fours, it wouldn’t have been so different from my current hunched posture anyhow.
However, the reward was the view, as you climbed further up, you could see the wall rising onto the hill in front of you, curve around on the mountains to the right, up and over, and far into the distance in the East. As I viewed all this I couldn’t help but think one thought.
What kind of crazy mentalist culture would be paranoid enough to build something like this?
Nice to see they’re over it eh? (Great Firewall of China?)
By now Sara had pointed out the sliding train.....the easy route down from the wall. This appealed to my senses of fun, laziness and increasing wind-induced vertigo. So we reached a point high enough for Sara to take a panoramic photie, had our pictures taken with a couple of people (we stayed stationary too long, easy prey), ate a custard pie and began to work our way back down to the sliding train. We had a photo taken but I can't upload it!
Ahhhh, and a couple of hours later we were on the train back to Beijing in time to catch another train to Harbin and another big adventure (with bellies full of KFC...mehehehehehe....sue me).
Stay tuned for the next blog in which I will be mostly whinging about not being able to sleep properly sitting up, and very cold temperatures. I know I know.....you can’t wait!
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