I awoke early morning to the sound of rain pounding on the window. Great. I wondered if the tour to the Great Wall of China would cancel. I had a coffee and by the time 7:00AM rolled around, the rain had stopped. I started getting ready and decided to treat myself to the buffet breakfast (68RMB) downstairs. There was plenty of food and it was delicious. I ate as much as I could which probably wasn’t 68RMB worth and went back upstairs to get ready. I was asked to meet the group in the lobby by 9:00AM.
There were only two of us going from the hotel. The other person was an older guy from Finland who didn’t speak much English. We were taken to a bus that had a number of passengers on it already. We picked up one more girl before making our way to Mutianyu. I read online that this was the place to go, as it’s about two hours outside of Beijing so it’s not too popular with tourists.
The tour guide on our bus talked for almost the entire way there. While some of the things she said were interesting, most were things I knew already from having lived in Asia so long. It was exhausted listening to her blab away into the microphone.
Our first stop, which wasn’t mentioned when I bought the ticket for the tour, was at a Jade Museum. A number of people weren’t happy to be there. Our tour guide said we were there so that she could go and pick up tickets to the Great Wall for us. They gave us a guide who talked about the Jade. I wasn’t listening nor was the majority of the group. After the lady talked about how the Jade was made and why it’s so great, they took us into a big room where they had a ton of different jade items for sale. I went and sat outside to wait for the guide and the rest of the group. A girl from France who was also in my group came out and said she wasn’t happy to be there. We both agreed that it was time we’d rather have spent on the wall.
The Great Wall was another twenty minutes away. We needed to purchase cable car tickets. There were two options and most of opted to go to the highest point on the wall. The cable car would drop you off at tower #14 and the highest point on the wall was tower #18. A ticket up and down on the cable car was 120RMB.
The guide went to buy the cable car tickets for us and then we walked through a tourist area with restaurants, drinks and souvenirs. The guide didn’t allow us to stop for anything so I am not sure why we were carted through that area. Again, time wasted.
We hopped back onto the bus and were taken over to the area where the cable cars were. There was a huge line, of course. The guys at the cable car said it would be about a forty-minute wait. The walk up was also about 30-40 minutes so we decided to stay in the line.
The line moved slowly and about one hour later some of the group decided to walk up. My mom had called on FT and I was chatting with her in line. After I had hung up and turned around, I realized half the group had left. The few that were still there said I could probably catch up with them but the day was hot and I wanted to save my energy to make it to the highest point on the Great Wall.
The guide originally wanted us back at 2:00PM. We talked her into 3:00PM and then finally 3:30PM as this would only give us two hours on the wall. We ended up waiting for the cable car for 1.5 hours. The ride up was quick but our time on the wall was short. A few of us took off in hopes of reaching tower #18.
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| The Great Wall of China: Mutianyu (慕田峪) |
The wall was very busy and this meant waiting in line to get on the wall and waiting in line to get through the towers. Around tower #16, the one guy and his son who I was walking with gave up. They decided to head back and meet his wife and other son. He promised they wouldn’t leave without me so I trekked on still hoping to make it to the top of the wall. I was alone. I reached tower #17 at about 2:40PM. The climb to tower #18 was hundreds of steep steps up. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to complete those steps and then I would have to walk all the way down from the wall as the line-ups for the cable car down were very long and waiting wasn’t an option. I also wasn't sure which route would take me down to where we needed to meet the guide.
I decided to quit at tower #17 and was slightly annoyed that I didn’t hire a driver for the day so I wasn't so pressured for time. The weather turned out to be quite good which I wouldn’t have known. The forecast for the area did call for rain and that’s why I didn’t pay the big bucks for my own car.
I took my time at the 17th tower and dawdled on the way back. Around the 15th tower I found the Finnish guy and the French girl and around the 13th tower we found the family from New Zealand. We all took our time coming down from the wall and got back to where we were to meet the guide about twenty minutes early. I perhaps could’ve trekked it up to the 18th tower but that could’ve meant keeping the group waiting.
So, it was a two-hour bus ride, a 1.5-hour wait in line for the cable car to have about 1.5 hours on the wall. We were then told we were going to a teahouse on the way back. We were hot and sweaty and again a number of us didn’t want to go. It would be the same as the jade market, which meant someone putting pressure on us to buy something.
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| Tea tasting at the teahouse |
We stopped at the teahouse and had a tasting of six different kinds of tea. The room we were in was icy cold and the tasting was actually very interesting. The lady showed us how to pour tea properly and explained the different kinds of tea we tasted and what their health benefits were.
Had I not been backpacking, I most likely would’ve bought some tea. I took some notes and will visit a teashop when I get back to Taiwan and buy some there. And while I didn’t want to stop there in the beginning, it was a very nice experience and something I would never have done on my own so I was thankful.
The bus ride home was in mad traffic and it took us about 2.5 hours to get back to the hotel. We arrived just after 7:00PM. I was starving. I ran to the little shop down the road to grab a couple of beers and then headed back to the hotel to order room service. While I was waiting for that, I had a nice, hot shower and then pounded back my food when it arrived.
I did nothing for the rest of the night. I was scheduled on a train to Datong the next day at 10:51AM. I packed up most of my stuff and then slept.
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