I'm a hero
I'm a hero now. Or so they say in China since I've now walked on the Great Wall. The conference is nicely scheduled with Wednesday set aside for an official excursion to the Badaling section of the Great Wall, a visit to a "Friendship" store for lunch, and then a tour of one of the thirteen Ming-era tombs north of town.
I sauntered on down to the hotel breakfast a bit earlier than usual this morning in order to catch the excursion bus before 8. I've been eating a very European breakfast these past few days (yogurt, fruit, croissant with tea) not so much because that's what a I want, but more because the alternative is just not quite in line with my morning needs. I graze off of the small section of the buffet, hidden off to the corner of the dining room. Instead, if I were a bit more of a hardy breakfast kind of guy, I could help myself to what looks like a full-on Chinese food buffet. Chicken, fish, soups, rice, steamed veggies, you name it. But having to eat the same stuff for both dinner AND breakfast gets to be a bit much. So instead I crunch my granola, usually to the company of Chris from New Zealand or with Annie and Roger from Australia, or Pat and family.
The bus whisked us through the morning rush hour traffic, north of town about 60 or so kilometers (36 miles), into the Tiashou Mountains. These are a very steep and craggy set of hills that separate the Beijing area from the more arid lands to the north and northwest. They're only 900 meters (3,000 ft) or so high but they certainly do a pretty darn effective job of keeping the pollution from escaping north. They also are one of the areas where many of the remaining sections of the Great Wall of China can be found. The Wall is actually made up of a whole bunch of interconnected walls. The section most of us tourists get led to, is called the Badaling sections. It's pretty impressive to see these winding, massive buttresses of finely carved rock as they begin appearing from the misty haze of smog that seems to cling to the hillsides. Everyone in the bus cranes their neck to get a glimpse as we wind our way up the highway (a lot like I-70 in Colorado!). Given the steep hillsides and this 30 foot high barrier that stretches from hilltop down to valley bottom and across and up to hilltop again, you can definitely see how it would have blocked the progress of any invading forces from the north.
As we approached the main tourist area, you could see that loads of folks had arrived before us. Not surprising since over 30,000 people (mostly Chinese tourists) visit the wall - every day!! The lower parking lots must have had 150 buses parked in them. We drove past them and dozens and dozens of more parked buses as ours continued up the now narrow and windy road, barreling past droves of people walking up to the actual entrance to the Wall. Our VIP status, being a delegation with the government, and being a collection of Western tourists, allowed us to park right at the gate. I was feeling a bit guilty about that, given that all the local tourists had to walk up those last few kilometers to even begin the then steep climb of the wall itself.
Our group chose to walk along the top of the west section of the Wall. The east side certainly reached a higher point and was a bit longer, but the throngs of people that you could be seen even from this distance was a bit of a deterrent. You walk along the top of the Wall, which is about 30 to 40 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide in places. Every couple hundred yards, there's a shady tower that served us nicely on this very hot and humid day. I think the temperature reached 36C in the afternoon (~100F). The walk along the Wall was OK, definitely impressive in terms of appreciating the effort that went into building it. What was almost as fun, was to deal with the vendors lined up along the way. There must have been one vendor for every ten tourist in places. All mostly selling cheap Tshirts and hats, others selling Great Wall of China souvenirs. The amazing part of that was realizing that most of them where not officially sanctioned and that they risked prison for selling their trinkets. I found that out as I was completing a purchase when all of sudden a message was sent from one vendor to the next up along the wall. They all got totally agitated, grabbed all their ware that was spread out along the wall's edge, were packed up in seconds, literally, and hopped down a passageway that led to the woods below the Wall. And just like that, they were gone! A minute later, a very tired and wilted official with a not very serious demeanor, came slowly strolling past.
With the Wall now ticked off on the list, the tourguide then led us to the bus and down the valley again. We drove to a government run "Friendship" store and restaurant for an "authentic" Chinese meal in a restaurant surrounded by an acre of inauthentic tourist trinkets. The food was OK. The best part of the meal was being able to share it with a couple of young folks from the Chinese Meteorological Agency who had joined us on the tour. Their English was very good and they allowed themselves to be totally interrogated by us. Where did you grow up? What parts of China have you seen? Did you go to college? And on and on. They also had fun trying to teach us a bit of Chinese. Ni hao (pronounced: nee how) means "hello". That's about the extent of my Chinese.
The last stop on the tour was at one of the Ming Tombs. These are located in an area tucked up against the foothills to the north of Beijing. The Ming Dynasty lasted for some 200+ years, from the 1300's to the late 1500' or 1600's. 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors had themselves buried in very elaborate tombs in this one area. Today the valley here is one big huge orchard where they grow persimmons and golden peaches. Poking out of the trees in various places spread out over several square kilometers, are large temples marking the location of the tombs. We visited the Ding Ling Tomb which was. It was excavated in 1956. We walked through the very large but sparse underground chambers that housed the Emperor's body and his two closest wives. The rest of his collection of wives are buried in the surrounding hills behind the Tomb. There were 12 levels of status among the wives and only the top tier were buried with the Emperor. I didn't ask the tour guide whether the wives were able to live out their lives before being entombed or whether their lives were cut short then the Emperor died. I would guess the latter. The tomb was pretty much empty. All the treasures and the caskets and bodies were deemed to be of dubious value to the People's Republic during the Cultural Revolution and where therefore burned or thrown away. Wow. How sad. Truly a waste of cultural treasure.
Trashed from all the tourist walking today (you know the feeling when you get museum legs?), we slithered off to the bus for the drive back to the city and the hotel. I grabbed a quick shower and then hooked up with some different folks tonight for dinner. We were a South African, a New Zealander, a Russian, a handful of Finns, a German, and myself. It was again really pleasant to talk with folks from other countries. We have so much in common yet we all see the world a bit differently. By the way girls, I was extended a pretty serious invitation to go and work in Australia next year for a year. Give some thought to that...
Love and hugs,
Bruce
I added some of today's pics again to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mullerb/BeijingJune28July82007
I sauntered on down to the hotel breakfast a bit earlier than usual this morning in order to catch the excursion bus before 8. I've been eating a very European breakfast these past few days (yogurt, fruit, croissant with tea) not so much because that's what a I want, but more because the alternative is just not quite in line with my morning needs. I graze off of the small section of the buffet, hidden off to the corner of the dining room. Instead, if I were a bit more of a hardy breakfast kind of guy, I could help myself to what looks like a full-on Chinese food buffet. Chicken, fish, soups, rice, steamed veggies, you name it. But having to eat the same stuff for both dinner AND breakfast gets to be a bit much. So instead I crunch my granola, usually to the company of Chris from New Zealand or with Annie and Roger from Australia, or Pat and family.
The bus whisked us through the morning rush hour traffic, north of town about 60 or so kilometers (36 miles), into the Tiashou Mountains. These are a very steep and craggy set of hills that separate the Beijing area from the more arid lands to the north and northwest. They're only 900 meters (3,000 ft) or so high but they certainly do a pretty darn effective job of keeping the pollution from escaping north. They also are one of the areas where many of the remaining sections of the Great Wall of China can be found. The Wall is actually made up of a whole bunch of interconnected walls. The section most of us tourists get led to, is called the Badaling sections. It's pretty impressive to see these winding, massive buttresses of finely carved rock as they begin appearing from the misty haze of smog that seems to cling to the hillsides. Everyone in the bus cranes their neck to get a glimpse as we wind our way up the highway (a lot like I-70 in Colorado!). Given the steep hillsides and this 30 foot high barrier that stretches from hilltop down to valley bottom and across and up to hilltop again, you can definitely see how it would have blocked the progress of any invading forces from the north.
As we approached the main tourist area, you could see that loads of folks had arrived before us. Not surprising since over 30,000 people (mostly Chinese tourists) visit the wall - every day!! The lower parking lots must have had 150 buses parked in them. We drove past them and dozens and dozens of more parked buses as ours continued up the now narrow and windy road, barreling past droves of people walking up to the actual entrance to the Wall. Our VIP status, being a delegation with the government, and being a collection of Western tourists, allowed us to park right at the gate. I was feeling a bit guilty about that, given that all the local tourists had to walk up those last few kilometers to even begin the then steep climb of the wall itself.
Our group chose to walk along the top of the west section of the Wall. The east side certainly reached a higher point and was a bit longer, but the throngs of people that you could be seen even from this distance was a bit of a deterrent. You walk along the top of the Wall, which is about 30 to 40 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide in places. Every couple hundred yards, there's a shady tower that served us nicely on this very hot and humid day. I think the temperature reached 36C in the afternoon (~100F). The walk along the Wall was OK, definitely impressive in terms of appreciating the effort that went into building it. What was almost as fun, was to deal with the vendors lined up along the way. There must have been one vendor for every ten tourist in places. All mostly selling cheap Tshirts and hats, others selling Great Wall of China souvenirs. The amazing part of that was realizing that most of them where not officially sanctioned and that they risked prison for selling their trinkets. I found that out as I was completing a purchase when all of sudden a message was sent from one vendor to the next up along the wall. They all got totally agitated, grabbed all their ware that was spread out along the wall's edge, were packed up in seconds, literally, and hopped down a passageway that led to the woods below the Wall. And just like that, they were gone! A minute later, a very tired and wilted official with a not very serious demeanor, came slowly strolling past.
With the Wall now ticked off on the list, the tourguide then led us to the bus and down the valley again. We drove to a government run "Friendship" store and restaurant for an "authentic" Chinese meal in a restaurant surrounded by an acre of inauthentic tourist trinkets. The food was OK. The best part of the meal was being able to share it with a couple of young folks from the Chinese Meteorological Agency who had joined us on the tour. Their English was very good and they allowed themselves to be totally interrogated by us. Where did you grow up? What parts of China have you seen? Did you go to college? And on and on. They also had fun trying to teach us a bit of Chinese. Ni hao (pronounced: nee how) means "hello". That's about the extent of my Chinese.
The last stop on the tour was at one of the Ming Tombs. These are located in an area tucked up against the foothills to the north of Beijing. The Ming Dynasty lasted for some 200+ years, from the 1300's to the late 1500' or 1600's. 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors had themselves buried in very elaborate tombs in this one area. Today the valley here is one big huge orchard where they grow persimmons and golden peaches. Poking out of the trees in various places spread out over several square kilometers, are large temples marking the location of the tombs. We visited the Ding Ling Tomb which was. It was excavated in 1956. We walked through the very large but sparse underground chambers that housed the Emperor's body and his two closest wives. The rest of his collection of wives are buried in the surrounding hills behind the Tomb. There were 12 levels of status among the wives and only the top tier were buried with the Emperor. I didn't ask the tour guide whether the wives were able to live out their lives before being entombed or whether their lives were cut short then the Emperor died. I would guess the latter. The tomb was pretty much empty. All the treasures and the caskets and bodies were deemed to be of dubious value to the People's Republic during the Cultural Revolution and where therefore burned or thrown away. Wow. How sad. Truly a waste of cultural treasure.
Trashed from all the tourist walking today (you know the feeling when you get museum legs?), we slithered off to the bus for the drive back to the city and the hotel. I grabbed a quick shower and then hooked up with some different folks tonight for dinner. We were a South African, a New Zealander, a Russian, a handful of Finns, a German, and myself. It was again really pleasant to talk with folks from other countries. We have so much in common yet we all see the world a bit differently. By the way girls, I was extended a pretty serious invitation to go and work in Australia next year for a year. Give some thought to that...
Love and hugs,
Bruce
I added some of today's pics again to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mullerb/BeijingJune28July82007
