18 January China

The Chinese Great Wall – first of it’s kind

There are several sections of the Great Wall that have been restored and are easy accessible for visits and walks for foreigners. One of them is the Great Wall of Mutianyu, the longest and well preserved to visit. It can be reached within 90 minutes from Beijing by bus we decided to go with an operator called Mubus in order to have great service and a hassle-free experience, with all tourist attractions registration and communication to authorities as well as knowing where to go and to wait are essential in the country, all that takes up a lot of time, because English speaking persons are rare and information is only available in mandarin most of the time. We highly recommend Mubus for any Beijing activity with good English speaking guides. 

After the bus ride we arrived super early in the morning and had five hours to spend on the wall, crossing to the east section first together with a guide to explain us a bit about the history as well as the former habits of living for the soldiers on the wall. Basically the wall was build to prevent mongol invasion and to protect the boarders of the empire. Even though the Chinese didn’t like the mongols, they still did a lot of trad and business with them, not that much has changed today, only it’s other cultures and systems with trading and disliking. In the remaining 2,5 hours we explored the western section and watchtowers with the deep steps and great views on our own.

Facts:

  • The whole wall has four segments across the country, that have been build over 1000 years, starting in the 6th century AD, driven by various dynasties.
  • It covers more than 21.000 km in length! That is the incredible amount of half the equator of our planet.
  • The wall is around 8 meters high, making it super hard to climb and about 5 meters wide at the top, so soldiers had enough space to roam.
  • 1 cubic meter of the wall consists of 200 bricks that were crafted from nearby areas using direct materials trough the ages.
  • It’s unique to the world, being the longest wall on the planet and thus earned its title as a wonder of the world.

Wanna know more? Just head over to Wikitravel and Wikipedia for more detail.

From the tourist center going up to the first watchtower you can take a cable car, walking on the wall itself requires a bit of fitness with its thousands steps, and steep ones at times!
In general I walked more than 15 km that day and went up 121 staircases, almost 400 meters in height.

Wandering on ancient paths with great views, I always wonder how was it like back in the days…

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