A bit about a trip to the HuangHuaCheng section of the great wall. Click “Read the rest…” if you want to read about it.

Enjoy…

The Hotel wanted around 450RMB for a tour to the “BaDaLing” section of the Great Wall – the section that pretty much every tourist to Beijing sees. I didn’t want to pay that much and kind of wanted to find something off the beaten path, so started looking for how the local folks see the wall. Also, I had heard that there was a section of the wall near Beijing that wasn’t restored – I searched on the internet and found a couple of references to the “HuangHua” section of the Great Wall.

After an MRT ride, public bus and hiring a minivan (from a Mr. Lee), I arrived at the HuangHua section. If you’re ever in Beijing and want an adventure, take the MRT line 2

to the DongZiMen stop;

Go to the bus stop out of the East exit (about 150 meters away from the exit); Take bus #916 to HuaiRou (pronounced “hwhy row” – 11 RMB as of 3/2007);

Find a minivan and tell them you want to go to HuangHuaCheng (there will be a few drivers come up to you – I probably over-paid at 50RMB each way – it is about 40km away).

On the way out to HuaiRou on the public bus,

I sat next to a lady who was about 60 years old – she was thrilled to know she was about the same age as my parents, and couldn’t believe that I didn’t bring Lana with me to Beijing, and thought it was the funniest thing that I was going to the Great Wall by myself – she kept bringing up her amazement on that account during our talk. I also met a couple of Christian foreigners (from Chicago and Wisconsin – Nadya and ?) who were going back to HuaiRou from Beijing – they were in Beijing practicing with their church music group. Apparently, there is a foreigner-only church in Beijing that they check your passport before you can go in – that is the only way that they can teach and do whatever they want w/out government intervention (like 3-self). Very interesting that they were taking a 2-hour round-trip journey just to worship God freely (and in English :-).

Anyways, Mr. Lee knew right where he was going

where the road goes to the wall, the road splits the wall in half. I told Mr. Lee I’d be back in 3 hours, and chose to go to the right – across the resevoir. Although there are big official looking signs saying “absolutely no climbing the wall”, there are also quite a few smaller, less official looking signs saying “2 RMB to climb the wall” or something like that.

The one I chose required a walk across the dam and then up a kind of rickety ladder to get on the wall.

The side the ladder was on was the Mongol horde side –

I later saw a couple of other paths that entered the wall through the gates from the Chinese side –

I didn’t notice them at the onset. Funny that for every official looking sign/rule in China saying “no,” there are about 10 cheaper ways to find a yes – the main concern is how much you want to risk on the unlikely enforcement of the “no.”

Since I had told my driver I’d be gone about 3 hours, I planned to go 1.5 out and 1.5 back – with a goal of acheiving the non-restored section before my time was up. I debated whether to take a short cut across the valley or climb a peak of restored wall, and decided on the restore wall going and the short cut on the way back.

I met a Chinese couple at the apex of the restored section – they were kind of scared because the wall was so steep at that point

– but I think seeing me climb down helped them motivate themselves. Last time I saw them, they had successfully climbed down the big break in the wall and headed back on the short cut.

Anyways, long story short – I ended up spending 1/2 my time on the restored section and 1/2 my timeon the non-restored section.

The scariest things were the areas where the wall was falling apart (like the outside was cleaving off of the inside part) and I had to walk on that section due to buckbrush-like shrubs, and the high winds that would gust up – strong enough to require a footing re-adjustment when they hit.

This was especially concerning when having to walk close to the edges and on the resevoir – I kind of tried to compensate by a wide stance and careful forward progress – I probably looked pretty funny, but I figured it was better than swan diving a hundred feet.

Also almost lost my cell phone when I was trying to take a picture and the wind knocked my hand down.

When I got back, my poor driver was freezing – he had waited without turning the car on for three hours!

The only way I stayed warm on the hike was by hiking like mad until I started sweating – it was really cold out.

Anyways, on the road back, I talked a bit to Mr. Lee – he has a wife and a daughter (3 years old) and owns his minivan outright. I also learned a lot about horses, donkeys and mules from Mr. Lee (like which ones were better for what, how to breed them, what you have to watch for when breeding them, etc…) – apparently he had grown up using them on the farm. And, I just read in the Bible about packs of wild donkeys – cool. I kind of am interested in getting a donkey now.

I’ve also read about folks who have camped out on the wall and hiked for a couple of days from city to city – that would be really fun one day.