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The Great Wall of China: More Like The Spectacular Wall AM I RIGHT

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Time for a confession: I must admit that Z is the one that planned this trip. Doing the Trans-Siberian was always his dream, and it was his planning that created our route doing the Trans-Mongolian version of that, then touring China, then going back to London via the Silk Route. Literally all I was responsible for this summer was figuring out our one day visit to the Great Wall, which you most commonly access with a day trip from Beijing. That’s all I was doing, really. I decided I wanted to do the hike from Jinshanling to Simitai, a 6 or so hour hike that seemed challenging (yay activity!) but also beautiful, and not absolutely covered with tourists like some other sections. Yay, I made a decision! Go me!

​Jinshanling is currently closed. 

It’s hard to find information when all the internetting results are in a language you don’t speak, so we didn’t really know until we got to Beijing that we needed a new plan. Simitai itself in another direction was an option, but it’s the less beautiful, more treacherous/wild of the two, so it didn’t call to me. There were a couple other wild sections we could have gone to, but we aren’t expert hikers enough to deal with dangerous segments, and the more wild sections are at least a 3 hour drive away, and we didn’t want to waste yet more of our time driving after Mongolia. And Badaling was never an option – it’s the closest, yes, and it’s beautiful, but it’s the most touristed. It’s like Forbidden City levels of people, but on the Wall, when it’s even more important to get unobstructed views. We decided on Mutianyu, a good mix of all positives – gorgeous scenery, mainly paved with only a bit that’s wild, not toooo far (like 2 hours), popular but not crowded. There’s also a cable car you can take up to save time from climbing the 1000 steps or whatever it is, and a toboggan slide you can take down. Yesss. We booked our bus with the asshat who has a table in the 161 Wanfujing Hotel, that I talked about in the Beijing city post, and it was pretty reasonable price for the two of us to get picked up at the hotel by bus (giant bus instead of minibus like the guy told us, ugh), get a giant lunch (was good too!), and have a guide explain stuff to us. Not having to deal with the public buses going there was worth it. AND the bus made a lot of toilet stops on the way out, so that was good. 

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took forever to get a picture that wasn’t full of posing people
We packed my day backpack full of water, coconut water, bananas, pretzels, and random vegetarian meat jerky and other fun snacks and set off at 7:30am. Because it was a big bus, we made stops at other hostels to pick up as many people as possible before starting the real the drive – which wasn’t that bad, except for the super annoying Americans sitting around us who were like ‘totally finding themselves’ and also liked to talk about all the weird meats they’d eaten. ORIGINAL. Anyway, once we arrived at Mutianyu, we bought tickets for the cable car, which are 40 RMB for a return journey, if I recall correctly. We wanted to walk up the 1000 steps to get to the wall (we love climbing stairs!), but we were told that that would take almost half the time we had for the entire day’s exploration, and we would much rather use that time to go farther along the wall to the wild section, which we did, than just climb stairs with no view. Smart decision. The cable car was kind of long and rickety but they always seem longer and ricketier than they are to me. Scary! But fun! We wanted to buy tickets to take the toboggan slide down (I mean come on of course we did, is it a luge???) but they had closed the slideway because it was going to rain later. Boooo. 
My disappointment at the slideway closure vanished when we got off the cable car at the top and made our way onto the main part of the wall. Guys, it really is Great. More than great, it’s one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. Better than I could have expected just seeing pictures. It’s amazing, and even high expectations could not hold a candle to the real thing. Even just realizing that you’re here, on the real Great Wall of China, is the coolest feeling. 
​We met an Australian mother and daughter and became friends and did most of the hiking with them. The daughter was literally the Aussie version of me, down to the same thick frizzy long brown hair in a braid that tended to the left side. They were so nice and we enjoyed huffing and puffing alongside them. Mutianyu is no joke of a hike, people. There’s one section that is another 1000 stairs (maybe not really but felt like it, at least 100s), just going straight up, and other stair sections with super steep scrambly bits that you need to use your hands for too.
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this section of steps was SO steep and they were sooo small
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that’s not me
​We went farther than most people ventured so we could see the wild, untamed section, the part that is mostly forest overgrowth on some old stone path instead of the solid path. 
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wild section begins
​It was cool to see but not much fun to climb on because I was too busy maneuvering my footing and trying not to fall to enjoy the scenery. Still, that was only a small percentage of our hike. Most of it looked like this:
​So flinging flanging gorgeous! Ugh it was amazing, it really was. It was much more difficult that I expected, with the heat and the steep steps and stuff, but it was so much fun. And to be really at the Great Wall itself was so special. You can’t actually see it from space, apparently, but it’s cooler than space is. I don’t like space. 
​We saw some amazing shirts on the wall, continuing one of China’s best trends for our amusement. And we saw a lot of kids – Mutianyu is apparently good for families, they say – including these adorable girls doing a jumping shot:
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Do you see the one’s shirt? It says “mermazing”. I want it.
​Not only shirts, but the signage on the wall itself was also amusing. Whyyyy is there a travel ban in this most famous tourist spot?
​The only negative about this section is that there is only a bathroom at the cable car entrance point at tower 14 of the 26 that compose Mutianyu. So we got off at tower 14, hiked to 24 ish where it became wild, then went as far into the wild as we could given the time and the, well, wildness of it. Then we went all the way back down to 14 and then past it to see the preteen towers (more of the same, all beautiful), and there was only a toilet at 14, that whoooole time. That’s hours! Now I wouldn’t want them to change this historic monument by building facilities where they don’t necessarily belong, but, like, maybe I do. Just one little toilet in say tower 20 would be amaazing, k thanks. 

Aside from that, it was the best experience. I could not get over how magnificent it all was and how special it was to be there. It was by far the biggest highlight of our summer so far. 
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don’t mind the super sweaty mess
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