It Really is Great!

In a bid to save money we eschewed the hostel's Great Wall tour and their advice on how to get there, and decided to follow the directions we had found online. A metro ride across town and we'd be able to get the last tourist bus leaving to Mùtiányú, which we had read was less touristy than Bādálĭng where everyone goes and is reportedly crawling with vendors and touts. When we arrived at the bus stop a man there told us there was no bus except on Saturdays and Sundays; if we had bothered to read what the Lonely Planet said about Mùtiányú we would have known this, but determined to make the plan work we fell back on the advice the hostel had given us, by jumping back on the very cheap, modern, and efficient metro and catching a different bus on the other side of the city. This approach meant changing to a minibus at the end of the bus route, which we were slightly apprehensive about. Some way from the last stop, a man got on the bus and pointed to us and said that we were at our destination and we should get off now to get to Mùtiányú. He managed to fluster us a bit, but we were sure enough to stay on the bus. After we pulled off from the stop I checked with the driver that we were still going to our destination. It was just a minibus driver trying his luck.

When we got to the end of the bus route it all went very smoothly. Minibuses were waiting to whisk us off to the Wall and they were only asking for about half of what we expected to pay, and we didn't even have to barter to get that price. The driver must have been desperate for work because he offered to wait for us and do the return trip too; he wouldn't even take half the money before we set off up the Wall.

Joanne just a little sweaty

The climb up to the Wall

It was a bit of a hike up the wall, but with the heat and the humidity we were sweating profusely; the fact we hadn't done any proper exercise for ages probably contributed to the difficulty we felt. At the top the view was superb.

Slightly exhausted

Even though the Wall had been restored it was still very impressive, and we had chosen well because we were not hassled too much and it wasn't jam-packed with other tourists as Bādálĭng would have been. We walked from one end of the restored section to the other, up and down some very steep stairs, until we got to a sign indicating that we should go no further. Beyond it was quite overgrown but other than that the wall actually looked in pretty good condition. There was an offshoot at right-angles to either side at this point and these bits of the wall were in a similar over-grown condition. It didn't seem like they would actually have had to do all that much restoration to get it in the tourist-friendly state it this section now was. I stood there thinking to myself “Wow! I'm on the Great Wall of China. I'm really here!”

The view from the Wall

No entry

There were disallowed exits all the way along

Joanne touching it in Chinese style

Unrestored bit of Wall

Even here they have to watch the people

Fantastic!

When will this end?

Mystery of the Plain of Jars solved! (It was the Chinese)

Even here they have time for detail

Last steep bit (honest)

We had refused the cable car on the way up because we really needed to save money after Japan, and our hostel wasn't really as cheap as we should have been aiming for in China, but there was a toboggan option for the descent and I couldn't resist. It was quite expensive, but it was definitely money well spent. Unfortunately there was a slow guy with a child going pillion in front of me, which ruined my high-speed descent, so I just stopped completely until Joanne caught up with me then set off again at full speed. There were officials posted at all the sharp corners telling me to slow down, but I ignored them and, since the rules at the top had said no photographs, I took a video of part of the descent. At the bottom I capped it all off by haggling a great deal on an army-style bag with the Mao motto Serve the People in Chinese on it, under the red star.

The Night Market

A stall at the Night Market

Beijing Duck

The really fatty stuff

Back at the hostel we asked if they knew somewhere for Peking Duck, since we thought we should try it while we were there, and were directed along the Night Market. There were more food stalls here, looking a bit better than the ones on Snack Street, although they still had the collection of alternative foods. We found our place and went in for duck. It was a bit above our budget, but we felt we had to. The menu had all sorts of horrible sounding things on it; I'm sure they're all really nice, but we were quite happy to stick with our side of vegetables and Beijing duck, which is of course what they call it. It wasn't really Joanne's or my sort of thing. It all seems to be about the fat; the meat is cut into three types: breast fat, lean breast, and mixed fat and lean, which I think is leg meat.

Vegetable side

There are little rice pancakes to wrap it in, and sugar, a choice of three sauces, cucumber, and spring onions to vary the contents of the parcel with. The fatty stuff is just really really fatty and I thought it was disgusting when I tried a few pieces without any accompaniments. By the end of the duck we were both totally full, although it hadn't looked all that much when it arrived, but it was a rich, sickly full, rather than a stuffed full. I could see the point of it, and I understood what they were doing, and why some people would like it, but it just wasn't my kind of food – but at least I'd have real Peking Duck.

Back at the hostel an American guy we were chatting to, told us he was leaving for Shanghai the next day, to see the total solar eclipse there. The what?. We knew nothing about it, but it sounded like an excellent plan. Shanghai was our next planned destination, but it would mean leaving Beijing a day earlier than we had planned, which we weren't too bothered about as we felt we had already had an excellent two days of tourism. So that was the new plan: Shanghai for the eclipse the day before Joanne's birthday!

written by

The Happy Couple on July 20, 2009 from Beijing, China

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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