The Great Wall of China, Badaling, Beijing, China

Hiking at Badaling Great Wall

Very, very early this morning, earlier than the sunrise, we woke and set off for our second trip to the Great Wall! Our plan was to be on the very first subway, allowing us to take the very first commuter train to the closest section of the Great Wall. This area is called Badaling and is renowned as being quite a tourist hotspot as well as an area that has been fully restored (it's probably far better in stature and size than it ever was).

However in a city of 24million + a large influx of tourists on bus's, we weren't alone in our thinking. At the train station we merged like a title wave into a sea of people. When the gates opened it was a mad rush for the train which was waiting 200 meters down the platform.  Here is an excerpt we took when we saw the wave coming up behind us. In the clip Kara says 'Their running for seats!  Go, Go, Go!!'

John is super fast though and his long European legs far out ran everyone, after locating him we had a nice and peaceful ride to Badaling enjoying some tuna sushi for breakfast. At the train station in Badaling almost the entire train boarded buses to be transferred to the cable cars, we weren't sure what was happening, everyone was moving so fast. Like stragglers, we took our time and wandered to the ticket office (for our AUD$7 tickets) that allowed us to walk up the wall. 

Entrance to the Badaling section 

We were very pleased with ourselves by the time we walked up to the entrance of the wall and saw the long line of people waiting to buy their tickets at the second ticket booth! Except they weren't! They were waiting to enter the wall. Doh! We didn't wait long however and soon were through with the option to go left up the South Wall or right to the North Wall. We went South and walked up a very steep section of the wall.

At this stage there was a mass of tourists (all Chinese) standing around in absolute awe! There is an old Chinese saying 'bu dao changcheng fei haohan' or in English 'you're not a real man, if you haven't climbed the Great Wall'! So there they were early this Wednesday morning waiting for their turn to be 'real' men. Funnily enough the cable car sign actually also said ' Your still a man if you take the cable'. 

The jandal breaking jump!

To our disadvantage the Beijing air was fairly poor today and limited our visibility. 

We motored on past all of the slowbies until we reached a nice a quiet section. It was here that Kara's jandal decided it had, had enough and broke! 

The horror! 

In China you wear shoes and you wear socks (even with sandals) but with no other option the broken jandals went in the backpack and Kara walked the remained of the Great Wall barefoot (you can take a kiwi out of New Zealand, but you can't take New Zealand out of the kiwi). There was a lot of pointing and some strange looks for sure! 

Trees under the watch tower

Tourists on the wall

Further afield 

A lonely part of the wall

Kara climbing in the bad air

Resting by a watch tower

Exploring the South side of Badaling

Looking back Northwards

From the top we slowly meandered back down the wall and decided to leave the North side of Badaling with the thousand others venturing up.

All the people! 

Overall we really enjoyed ourselves and it is always great to get out of the city centre however we found this section of the wall much too touristy. The wall has been overly restored and since has been subjected to a substantial amount of graffiti carving into the stone face.

Coming back into Beijing on the train

In the area there seems to be a flurry of new tourist monuments being built into the hillside but we think it would be better if they just left the beautiful trees so people could enjoy a more natural and scenic outlook.



After exiting again, through the crowds waiting to enter, we caught the next train back into Beijing (in a somewhat less diabolical manner) and were home for lunch! A very successful morning! 

Tot siens,
John and Kara