"It sure is a great wall" - Richard Nixon
My alarm rings this morning but I'm already awake. I take a slow check of my vitals. I feel OK. I get up and put in my contacts. I don't feel weak or lightheaded. Great. I pack up my backpack, make a quick stop at the bathroom just to make sure and meet Andrew outside. Andrew has just checked out and we walk to the metro station together. He's going to the airport and I'm going to the long distance bus station. We say goodbye and get on different trains.
At the bus station I am looking for bus 916 which should take me to Huairou. At that point I should find bus 961 which will take me to Huanghuacheng, which is a town near the section of the wall I want to hike. Aparently this section was built by a general who demanded a high amount of craftmanship be put into this wall. Every inch of the wall here represents a days worth of labor by one man. When it was discovered how much money he was spending on this section of the wall his higher up was enraged and the general was beheaded. Its said that his body stood errect for 3 days before falling over. Afterwards another general determined his wall to be of superior quality and he was redeemed; perhaps a bit late.
The guidebook is a little fuzzy on travel details such as what times these buses leave, where to pick them up in Huairou and where to get them on return, but I trust that it will all work out. While I am looking for the 916 a man approaches me, "Hello! hello!". He holds up a laminated sheet with several wall sections listed and asks if I am going to one of these. I point at 'Huanghuacheng' and he says "Yes, yes, this way". "Wait," I say "I need the 916 bus to Huairou". "No, bus there, no taxi at Huairou" he says. I have my notepad out and he draws an arrow from the word 'Beijing' to 'Huairou' and from 'Huairou' to 'Huanghuacheng'. He then crosses out the arrow for the last stretch and repeats, 'no bus, no taxi'. I know there is a bus there. I talked to someone who went the day before and they took a bus from 'Huairou'. He draws a single arrow from Beijing to Huanghuacheng and then writes '120' meaning 120 yuan. "No, no no" I say, "I'm not paying you 120 yuan". I didn't even want to barder this guy because I knew I could get both bus for 13 yuan total. After some back and forth and him trying to convince me that I would be stranded at Huairou, I wrote down 916 on the notepad and told him "just show me this bus".
Amazingly he let off, took me by the hand and led me to the road where a line of bus stops stood. He pointed at the distance and at the middle divider, making sure I knew where he was pointing and sent me off. And indeed I found the 916 right where he said it would be. The ride to Huairou lasted a little over an hour, and when we got there I realized there were multiple stops in this city and I had no idea which one I need. I showed the bus attendant the name of the wall section I wanted an pointed at my phrasebook: "Could you let me know when to get off?".
The attendant waved me off and I found myself in a crowd of minitaxi drivers. These aren't really taxis as they charge a fixed negotiatable fare. I knew there was a bus I could take, but I didn't know where to pick it up, and I didn't feel like walking around or waiting for it. I started negotiating. "90" said one who had apparently staked me out. "No no no." I said, "40". There were some hand guestures and then my notepad came out again. Via arrows labelled with cities and prices, he told me he wanted to charge 80 for the round trip. Thats a joke. I pay him 80 and he'll be nowhere to be found when I get back from hiking. I tell him this in english. He seems to understand; the other minitaxi drivers gaffaw and he pretends like I've sullied his honorable name. He tells me 45. I tell him that I'm going to find the bus stop and begin to turn away when he says "40" and inks a heavy '0' over the '5' in his previous price. Deal. Its $5, but I don't care. I pile into his little car. It looks like a volkswagon minibus, but is about the size of a volkswagon beetle. Within an hour we are at the wall. He drops me off and I hand him his 40 yuan.
I cross a small contrete dam and climb up a hillside to a crumbling guardhouse that marks the start of the wall on this side of the river. On the other side I see the wall go straight up the hill, then down and then up again until finally dissapperaing. It seems to be in about the same shape this secion is. When new, the wall was shaped like a channel. A large rocks made up the base and then smaller bricks were used to build up high sides enclosing a central road which was paved with flat stone. Most hill hand mountain peaks that the wall crosses have a guard tower. Where I start, the sides of the wall are gone and so is the flat paving stone. The exposed stone stairsteps which is helpful since the wall heads up the hill at a 45 degree angle. As I hike, the wall steadily climbs a hill and I hit a few guard houses. Every so often, there is a toll collector who asks for 2 yuan. This is expected and they don't ask for more. There are also a few peddlers selling postcards and calendars, but not too many. I don't see any other hikers during my 3 hour hike.
Its difficult to imagine the wall being built. It extends to the horizon in both directions but only parts of it can be seen at any time due to the way it undaungintly rockets up mountains only to plunge back down the other side. Up and down, up and down. If this was used as a road, it would have been a very difficult journey. While the first section was crumbling to dust, others were more intact to varying degrees. In some parts a large chunk would be missing making it necessary to scale down, cross a few feet of rubble and climb back up the other side. Most of the roadway was overgrown with scrub bushes and plants leaving only a narrow path through them.
I arrived at an end point and looked up. I really wanted to keep climbing. The next section shot straight up into the sky but for the same reason I knew that it probably wouldn't be a good idea. The section I just finished was not as long an ascent and, still recovering, it was a lot of effort for me. With a sigh, I took a last lingering look and headed through a local farmers fruit orchard towards a road where I could catch the 961. While I'm walking I see two people ahead of me. As I catch up, I recognize them as people from the hostel. They tell me they just climbed down the other side and are also heading back. Sarah is Canadian and is traveling for a year and Edgar is Dutch and is traveling for 8 months. Again, I feel like I've somehow missed the memo that went out on length of travel.
We get to the bus stop and they order some food at a small restuarant there while we wait for the bus. I don't order anything. I'm still wary. While they eat I see a yellow thing zip by followed by a big puff of brown dust. Sarah gasps and I look outside. As the dust settles I see a little three wheeled truck pulled to the side of the road and a yellow motorcycle lying on the ground. The cyclist gets up. He looks fine, but angry. He is immediatly on his phone. Police maybe? Insurance? With in minutes comes another motorcycle. Then another, this one with two people. He called his friends. In all I counted about 8 motorcycles that arrived, plus a car, plus a jeep full of girls. The jeep girls were yelling at the 3 wheeled truck driver and I had to wonder why since they hadn't seen a thing. All of them argued with the truck driver or just stood around on the sideline. We think it was probably the cyclists fault. "Beijing" says the store owner, indicating that they are no good Beijing kids. The cyclist who went down was wearing jeans and didn't even have a helmet on (who could cover that cool long luxourious hair?), but had one pant leg pulled up showing the driver some insignificant scratch. I couldn't see any blood and I doubt it was more than a bruise. We paid the bill and caught the next bus. The crowd had thinned, but they were still going at it.
I rode home with Sarah and Edgar and ended up having dinner with them and a Dutch couple that night. I had enjoyed Sarah and Edgar's company on the hike to the bus and on the ride itself, but now Sarah was beginning to wear a little thin. For one, she didn't know very many chinese words, but the ones she did know she pronounced in the way some people pronounce english words to foreigners; loudly and slowly. Plus she said them in a way that one might speak a secret word on a kids show, a giggle that can't be kept inside for something so silly. The overall effect was mightily condescending. After dinner she'd say "SHEEEEE, SHEEEEE!", voice rising like she was letting the owner in on her little secret.
It was probably unintentional. She was just a loud person in general. Some people don't know their own strength, she didn't know her own diaphram. Aside from that annoyance, she was a braggart. I don't know how many times she regalled us with stories from her travels to India, Nepal and Tibet from the month earlier. At first I was happy to hear them. Everyone has stories. But she wouldn't stop. When asked what she thought of the wall, she said "Well, it was alright". "What?" the Dutch couple asks "You weren't impressed?".
"Well, when you've seen the Taj Mahal, Mt Everest from Nepal, been on the Tibetian platuea and seen Mt. Everest from Tibet its hard to be impressed".
"But the wall is such a different thing. The amount of work and effort put in by so many men"
"You should see the Taj Mahal! Its sooo detailed that..."
and she launches in to a long boring story about this and that detail of the Taj Mahal. She had a lot of long boring stories and all I wanted to do was leave. The Dutch couple were nice, but they had had just been through Burma and had not heard of the travel embargo for travel there or of Aung San Suu Kyi. When I told them about it, they said "Well, I think even if the government there gets most of the money from tourists, its better that the local people are exposed to these travelers". I found myself on the defensive without all the facts. They simply did not want to believe that there was any problem with going there. Since they had already gone, they probably just wanted to justify themselves. I told them that they should read about it, but I doubt they will.
How can you go to a country like Burma and not know whats happened there? At this dinner I met two more types of travelers. The Dutch couple were by no means unlearned, but the culture and the history of the area didn't seem to be of much interest. They seemed like the old style european travelers. Interested in the sport, the danger; willing to trade a few cheap beads for products made by locals after hours of hard work. The world belongs to them. Then there is Sarah who is chalking up her scores one by one. Preparing story after excruciatingly boring story about her wide travels across the wide world; The world weary braggart.
I finally break in and ask if we can pay the bill. Its almost midnight and I'm tired physically and mentally. When we get back to the hostel I quickly fall asleep.
