Monday, August 13, 2-18
Janshanling Great Wall and Beijing Olympics Park
Today was another deeply challenging day for us in China but boy, how satisfying and fulfilling it turned out to be! We had a packed breakfast kept ready for us at 6.30 provided by Frank, hotel receptionist at our Red Capital Residence Hotel. Our Pick up for Jinshanling Great Wall Tour arrived at 7.15 am. Our guide was Chang (Chen), a very cheerful chap who was full of jokes and who saw us into the rigors of a very tough day. He took us in a taxi to a waiting coach. Then five minutes’ drive later, we were transferred to another coach for English speakers where we joined a large bunch of international tourists who preferred English as their language of communication even if they were not native speakers themselves. We had visitors from Spain, France, etc. in our coach.
Our coach ride took more than 2 hours. Beautiful mountain scenery emerged within an hour out of the city of Beijing with back tiers of hills fading into the mist just as seen in Chinese paintings. We arrived at Jinshanling at 11.00 am when Chen bought our entry tickets (65 yuan each) and led us to the cable car (40 yuan each) that would cut down a large part of our climb to the Wall. The cable car took us way up the hill for a 15 minute ride which we would have enjoyed more had it not begun to rain. Fortunately, a lady appeared with ponchos and umbrellas for sale for just 10 yuan each—Llew and I bought one each. It would be the wisest purchase we made on our trip as bad weather dogged us often and made us very grateful for the security of those plastic sheets.
Once up, our climb began. The Great Wall was right in front of us, snaking to the east and west. I have to say that my first view of it was extremely thrilling—like seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time, or the Grand Canyon—both of them had taken my breath away. And I did feel a little bit of that shiver run down my spine when I saw the watch towers of the Great Wall and the curvy lines of it as it marched way into the horizon. It actually has to be seen to be believed. I am finding it hard to describe what it looked like in the misty obscurity of an emerald-green wilderness. When we had taken umpteen pictures to immortalize our presence at this venerable site, we began our hike. And what a hike it turned out to be! Four and a half full hours of climbing uphill through terrain that was constantly uphill over extremely high steps in sections and in air that was thick with humidity. I often had sweat fall from my hair line directly into my eyes. It was one of the toughest physical things I have ever done! But oh so worthwhile!
Basically, we moved from what is called the East Tower to the West Tower. I repeat: it was really challenging in parts—vertical ladder-like spurts were the worst bits of it as we climbed high sections of stone hewn stairs. In total, it was an uphill climb for over 4 and a 1/2 hours. Meanwhile, as we were huffing and puffing our way from one watch tower to the next, the scenery everywhere was simply brilliant. Rains had left the hills draped in verdant lushness. In Jinshanling, most of the wall has been restored and because it was so far away from Beijing, it was not crowded. Other than our coach load of people and one other, there was really no one there. This oftentimes made me feel like a medieval Mongolian alone in the world. Luckily, it stopped raining as soon as our hike began. This made us worry about one less thing—staying dry. We kept drinking water as it was horribly hot and very humid. Sweating poured out from every pore. Fear of dehydration kept us drinking. We were also snacking constantly on Pocky—dark chocolate covered thin pretzel sticks that are a very popular snack in the Far East and to which one of my students had introduced me, many years ago.
At 1.30, we arrived at the furthest point on the hike of that portion of the Wall that has been restored. The rest was the original, unrestored part of it. It is much harder to scale as the stones that make up the road are very uneven and the ramparts are broken. This means that you do not have the comfort of the walls on either side to assist in climbing it. The watch towers in this portion of the Wall also had broken crenellations.
Despite all these challenges, it was a superbly exhilarating climb and a wonderful accomplishment. As I said, it was probably one of the most gratifying things I have ever done in my entire life. One does not know what to expect when one undertakes such a feat—indeed pictures cannot do justice to the human accomplishment of building such a structure especially in those days—2700 years ago. Construction began during the Qing dynasty days to keep Mongols and Hans out of China. One cannot ignore the knowledge that most of it was built with slave and prisoner labor. The restoration of the structure, in modern times, is equally magnificent and visitors must credit China for having undertaken the venture and made a success of it. Indeed it is hard to imagine the size and solidity of this structure—reportedly the only man-made structure on earth that is visible from space. We stopped frequently to take pix. Each vista was different—no two alike. Overall, it was an unimaginable Bucket List item accomplished.
In the bus back at base at 2.30pm, Llew and I shared a cold beer bottle with more Pocky. Then on the bus again, we drove 5 minutes to a neighboring restaurant for lunch. Seated at a round table with 8 other passengers—non-Chinese (Italians, Americans, Australians), we Introduced ourselves and got chatting. It was great to have these companionable breaks with fellow-travelers. It was a lovely crowd of adventurers who have traveled (alone) to many parts of the world.
Lunch was amazing: we were serve a vast variety of Chinese dishes—at least 12 in number. Chicken, Beef, salads, cooked veg—were all served with rice. There were unlimited quantities and every item was very tasty. No two dishes were alike. There were banana popsicles for dessert—I did not like it and and gave it to Llew.
Back on the bus at 4.00 pm for our ride back to Beijing, we took very long as the other bus had broken down and we needed to stay slow to help it as Chen switched from one to the other. We finally arrived at Donzimen Subway Station at 7.00 pm way behind schedule.
Our attempt to get to Temple of Heaven Park which contains the Temple of Heaven (not really a temple and not really a park) was a failure. The location was so far south that we had to change two subway lines. We made it there at 7.50 pm but it was already too late. The Temple had closed for the day although the Park was open till 10.00 pm for an entry fee of 15 yuan. But since we could not see the temple even from the outside, we decided not to get into the Park. the temple is supposed to be an iconic symbol of Beijing but since it was basically a wild goose chase for us we had to content ourselves with a look at pictures of it.
Seeing the 2008 Olympics Stadium and Park:
Next, we decided to take the subway way up north to the Olympics Sports Center to see two iconic buildings that had been built for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—The Bird’s Nest (the main stadium where opening and closing ceremonies were held) and right opposite it, the Water Cube or Ice Cube where the Aquatics events were held. Our friend Ian had emailed us about this building though it was not on the cards for us to see. The place was simply heaving as it turned out to be school summer holidays in China—so families are out with their kids in places like these. You need a ticket to enter each building and by the time we arrived there, the ticket office was closed. We could only take pictures from the outside but the sound and light show in front of each was lovely as the illuminations are beautifully coordinated. Lots of other buildings were well lit with lights of changing colors.
And then we had some really crummy luck! We were just leaving the Ice Cube when the heavens opened. We were caught in a really awful heavy shower that simply wouldn’t stop. We waited under a shelter for about 15 minutes; but the ground beneath us began flooding. Our shoes and socks were soaked to dripping. We decided that since we had ponchos in our bags, we could walk to the subway. But we were well and truly soaked and dripping by the time we reached the station. It was a horrid experience and counts among one of the worst we had in China. To make matters worse, the subway station was packed to capacity.
We then decided to take the other subway station (Dongze Shitaiao) hoping it would take us faster to our hotel. No such luck! Our walk was just as long—about 17 minutes. Tired and dying to get into bed, we went to the Crescent Moon Restaurant again and got take out lamb kebabs and sheesh kebabs for dinner.
When we returned to our hotel, we met Frank and asked him to help us buy tickets to Pingyao for departure in the morning. We wanted to know the train schedule. Frank checked and told us that just three tickets were left for the train we wanted to catch, the next morning. He advised us to rush by cab to Beijing Railway Station to buy them. It was almost 11.00 pm by then and we were exhausted, Furthermore, it was so hard to get a cab. Finally one came—it was a sort of Uber for which Frank had pre-paid. Ten minutes later, we were at Beijing Railway Station. To our incredible luck, two tickets were actually left for the 8.10 am train for Pingyao, but they were not together. No other tickets were available for any other train. We decided to take them. We then had a really hairy time getting a cab back to our hotel. Taxi sharks mobbing us asked us for absurd prices. It was very scary indeed as it was close to midnight by then and the streets were emptying fast of all humanity. I found the whole experience quite unnerving. Finally, we found an auto rickshaw who took us back for 30 yuan as opposed to the taxi driver who started out by asking us for 180 yuan. By then, having paid in cash for four sets of train tickets, Llew had run out of cash. He had his last 29 yuan left. However, when we gave it to driver, he accepted it with a smile and drove away.
We then asked Frank if he could change money for us but the poor chap had none. He told us that there were ATM machines at the end of our street open 24 hours. Another trek there followed so that we could change money as we would need cash for the taxi in the morning to take us to Beijing West Train Station for our train to Pingyao—it would cost us 76 yuan.
With all the stress and back and forth and craziness, we eventually got to our rooms at 1.00 am. Then we had showers, ate kebabs for dinner with our morning’s remaining croissant—believe me, it was the strangest meal following a strange day.
Despite the late hour, we packed our belongings and kept our bags ready for our 5.30 am alarm to leave the Red Capital Hotel at exactly 6.00 am for our taxi pick—Frank had kindly organized our taxi and packed breakfast for us. It was with the utmost relief that we went to bed at 1.30 am.
It had been an exhausting crazy day but one that offered memories that we would cherish forever.
Until tomorrow...
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