Beijing Diaries, Day 5: To the Great Wall for a One Last Time

After a satisfactory fourth day in Beijing, I had seen most of what I wanted to see except for the Ancient Observatory and Bird's Nest. On the fifth day I was hoping to visit the former first thing in the morning and the latter in the evening with the hope that they would light up the thing. So I had a several hours of free time in between and a few choices as well. I could either go see 798 Art District which was supposedly very impressive, just walk the streets getting a taste of the lives of locals, stay at the hotel relaxing or go see The Great Wall again, hopefully a different place this time. Finally I decided on the last option for a) I was so inspired by it I didn't mind a second look, b) I wasn't really satisfied with the pictures I took there the first time I went and c) though I love art I was sure there was no Michelangelo stuff. Since I had visited Badaling already, this time I wanted to go to Mutianyu but was faced with the problem of how to get there. A quick inquiry from the front desk revealed that it would cost me around 700 RMB for a taxi to and from the Mutianyu Great Wall. It wasn't a huge amount per se, but a considerable amount nonetheless. So I turned to ever so faithful Google - though it was google.jp as they've blocked the .com site over there (yeah, makes sense) - that I visited for real. It told me that I could take a bus so to make sure I called Lynda and she e-mailed me the details on how to get there. I needed to take a bus to a town close to the Great Wall and then either take a taxi or hire a car. The bus fare - I'm not kidding - was 11 RMB and a taxi or a car would cost about another 25, so it's about 70 to and from there, one tenth of what a taxi would cost. I didn't need any convincing.

But first I grabbed a taxi and headed for the ever so elusive Ancient Observatory which I so wanted to see. No it wasn't avoiding me as such, but the circumstances prevented me from seeing it so far. The ride was only a few minutes and upon arriving there I got off the taxi to face, for the first time in Beijing, a deserted entrance to a tourist attraction. I was not sure even if it was open, but a quick inspection revealed that it was though nobody had bothered coming there. Maybe, no, surely, not everyone is an astronomy fanatic like I am. I bought a ticket and entered to find an amazing and unexpected sight. It was an oasis at the heart of Beijing, masked from all the noise and chaos. The place was very quiet and with a bunch of trees inside, very cool and beautiful. I could stay there for hours I didn't have other plans. There were so many ancient astronomy related instruments with lots of descriptions and I spent a good hour or so there chilling. And taking pictures of course.

Once I had seen all that was there to see I proceeded to the next step. Which is to find the central bus station where I was supposed to take a but to the hills. Another few minutes' taxi ride later I was there and quickly found the correct bus with the help of a information counter lady. However I had to fend off a couple of guys who offered 'cheap' rides up there, and believe me getting rid of these people is not easy. Finally I bought a ticket and was seated inside the bus which was pretty comfortable. Unfortunately an oldish looking couple sat next to me who wanted to talk to me despite them not speaking a word of English and me not speaking a word of Chinese. It must have been hilarious to see for others though I didn't exactly feel that way at the moment. Finally I just shrugged and turned away to listen to my iPod and they got the message so they left me alone for the rest of the trip which was a little more than an hour. Towards the end of the ride I saw there was a young foreign couple sitting a few seats away from me and we exchanged one of those "phew, glad to see another alien here" nods and proceeded to talk. Turned out that they were a French couple - Homar and Mili - who were living in Vietnam and travelling around in China for their summer vacation.

Upon arriving at our destination we got off the bus and were immediately approached by a couple of locals who again offered us 'cheap' rides to the wall. Cheap ride being 50 bucks each. But I as well as the French couple had done our homework and we knew it shouldn't cost any more than 25 so we said no thanks and headed away from them. Just as I expected one guy started following us, nagging us to go with them saying there were no taxis. And we quickly realized that unlike in the central Beijing it is indeed hard to find a taxi there. But we still feigned disinterest and got down to bargaining.

"Sir, no taxi here. I take you fifty, fifty, fifty", said the dude pointing at each of us.

"No, fifty's too much. Way too much."

"Okay, give me forty."

"No"

"Okay sir you tell me price"

"Fifteen" we said, though I felt a little bit of guilt even.

"Noooooo sir no fifteen. I give you thirty. Best price."

A little more bargaining later we managed to get it down to 20 each, and if we persisted a little more we could probably have taken it down even more but decided it wasn't worth the hassle. A few minutes later we jumped in his van and was on our way to Mutianyu which was about fifteen minutes away. At the entrance I bought a return ticket for the cable cars while they bought only one way saying they wanted to come back on foot. Upon arriving at the wall we said our goodbyes knowing that we will probably never meet again in our lifetimes. Wasn't to be so, but that's for later. Then I turned my attention to the sight that was there, and I shall not waste your time again trying to describe the scene there like I did the few posts ago. I could use the words like spectacular, amazing, breathtaking, awe-inspiring and many more but they will all fail me, I'm sure. It is worth saying though that this Mutianyu wall is much less crowded than the Badaling wall but probably more scenic. If you ever intend to go there, I suggest you go to Mutianyu if you have time to visit only one. This time around I spent time there to my heart's content (or more like till I got exhausted) and took a bunch of nice picture. I also met a few tourists including a bunch of Americans who walked with me for some time, a family of Indians who were very keen to inform me that they lived in America though I didn't ask and finally an elderly South African couple who got very hesitant about walking the rest of it seeing me in my exhausted state. We chatted for a while and found out that the gentleman was as big a sports fan as I am so we got to talk about Tri-Nations and the Bocks' pathetic display this year until the old lady interrupted asking us to stop with the 'stupid rugby talk'. We parted after a while and I took a cable car back ending my second and probably the last Great Wall visit.

Next and final post will bring you the story of how I met the French couple that I thought I would never meet again, and also the details about my thank-god-I-did-it moment that night.


Part Six

Beijing Diaries, Day 2: The really great Great Wall of China

Now I'm pretty sure you were waiting to know what I did with the pack of condoms I found in the minibar inside my room, but sorry to disappoint you dirty minded people; I just left it there. And went to sleep at around midnight. Luckily I had told earlier my tour guide to come pick me up from the hotel at 10 in the morning so I would have enough time to get a proper sleep.

The next morning I headed for the dining hall since I was to get free breakfast with my hotel package and it truly was an awesome breakfast. I'm all for trying out authentic local food and all, but I would always like a good old English breakfast if I am anywhere but Sri Lanka. Thank god they had just that; scrambled eggs (and if you prefer all other sorts too) with mashed potatoes, sausages, salad, toast and of course tea. But it didn't stop there. There was such a huge variety of food, and I was SO hungry after a poor meal in the plane last night, I ended up eating not just that but also wheat bread with peanut butter (crazy, I know) and Chinese noodles with, well I don't remember with what.

Anyhow, full to the brim I was back in my room getting ready to go when I got a call from the reception saying that my guide had arrived. Few minutes later I was in the lobby looking around everywhere wondering how the hell am I going to spot my guide what with three fourth of the people in the lobby being Chinese and they all looking pretty much the same. But I guess that a Sri Lankan with a big ass camera and a tripod in hand in a hotel lobby in China must be kind of a rare sight, so a moment later I saw a cute girl heading my way.

"Hello sir, are you Sach?"

"Yeah, and you must be my guide?"

"Yes sir, I'm Winnie, nice to meet you!"

"Hello nice... what? Winnie? You said your name's Winnie?"

"Yes, like in Winnie the Pooh!"

"Erm... okay, hi Winnie, nice to meet you too!"

Now you shouldn't assume that this conversation went as smooth as you read it. Firstly, the accent of Chinese when they speak English is damn hard to follow especially if they are not really good at English. Add to that the fact that while I was talking I was also thinking how the hell did a Chinese got a name like Winnie. Strange, just like if you named a Sri Lankan guy Angelo Matthews. Anyway after this initial surprise we got into the car she had brought with her and proceeded to teach each other how to say "good morning" in our respective languages. For your information, or FYI as they say in this age of the Internet, it's zao shang hao. Stop trying to pronounce it now and read the rest of this post. As I was saying, we exchanged this information but I was still bemused at "Winnie" so I asked if it is her real name or just a pet name. Looks like most of the Chinese, or at least people who deal with foreigners, have an English name too which I thought was pretty stupid. I can't for the life of me imagine Japs changing their name so it would be convenient for the foreigners to speak it. Eventually I got to know her real name is Yan which I thought pretty cool and also easy to say so we stuck to that. Of course I asked her to do away with "sir" and stick to just Sach.

My plans for the day were first to go see Ming Tombs, then to the Badaling Great Wall and later if time permits, somewhere else too. The first place I visited, Ming Tombs, disappointed me since there wasn't really much to see. Then Yan suggested that we go see this Jade factory and store, which to be honest I didn't think would be very interesting either. How very wrong I was. It was fascinating to see the all the brilliant sculptures, jewelry and all sorts of other things that were made of Jade. Before this Jade stones meant green color beautiful stones to me. But it was much more than that; there were all sorts of colors like blue, purple, orange, brown, gold - you name it they have it. They also took me around the factory to see how actual stones are cut, polished and made into beautiful artwork which was pretty awesome. It was tedious work which sometimes take months apparently and you need to be skilled at the art. After spending more than an hour there and taking many many photos I finally spent a few bucks on a Jade bracelet before leaving the place.

Next was the lunch. Yes even after such a huge meal I still was hungry so we proceeded to find a restaurant and ended up in a place which I can best compare with a Saivar Kadey in Colombo. I ordered Chinese Fried Rice and a pork curry and I was in for not one, but two surprises. Firstly, being used to get so little whatever you order in Japan, I couldn't believe the size of the pork curry for one person. Easily three people could eat it. And secondly, I think the Sri Lankans can give a good lesson to Chinese on how to make Chinese Fried Rice. This rice was SO bland. I finished only one third of what was on the table though I must tell that the pork curry was really good.

Now all that behind, finally, I was ready to go see my dream destination. We hopped in the car and headed for the Badaling Great Wall, but I had picked the worst day of the week, Sunday, to go there. The traffic was awful and it took much longer than I had hoped so it was close to 4 in the evening when we finally arrived there. From there tourists must take cable cars to go up to the Great Wall, but I felt really hopeless seeing the very long line that was there. But that's when Yan stepped in; not only she was able to get me tickets pretty quick, she also found another cable car place where I could use the same ticket but was MUCH less crowded. Thank god I had decided to go with a guide that day. However, since Yan could not use her tour guide pass to travel by the cable car the plan was for me to walk on the wall for about one and a half hours before coming back to the same location where she would wait for me. Since the cable cars stop their service at 5 p.m., she was continually reminding me to get back on time. Minutes later, finally, there I was on The Great Wall of China, and what can I say but it truly was a great feeling being there taking in the absolutely spectacular sight which was literally all around me. Whichever way you look the Great Wall ran on almost all the mountains until you could not see it anymore. Ever since I was a kid I always was fascinated by this place, I often wondered how cool it would be to actually see this place but never really thought I would be there someday. It was truly a dream come true though not for the first time; I felt the same standing in front of the altar in Sistine Chapel and looking at the painting Last Judgement, a wonderful work by that genius Michelangelo.

After about ten minutes of being amazed I realized I also need to take photos so set up my tripod and camera and set to work. Several minutes later I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder and I turned to see Yan there behind me. Apparently she was worried that I might miss the final cable car downwards - actually I would have - so she had talked up with the guys operating them to take her up there. And a good thing she did too; I took SO much time photographing eventually it was close to six in the evening when I finished. She was very patient with all that, and then we walked on the Great Wall towards an exit where we can go downwards on foot to where she had asked the driver to bring the car to. From there onwards I mostly slept in the car on our way back to hotel where I said my goodbyes to Yan, a really wonderful girl whom I would love to meet again someday.

You can see a few pictures in by Photoblog and a lot more in my Flickr stream.

Await for more which happened on that night as well as the following day, on my next post.


Part Three