Today has been the one of the most exhausting days of my entire life. We went to the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall originally consisted of many separate walls, constructed by independent kingdoms, but since then they have more or less been linked up. It is not known exactly how long the wall is, it has not been properly surveyed, but 6000 kilometres is a number one often sees. It is said that the Great Wall never did perform its function as a defence line to keep invaders out, and it had largely been forgotten when it was “discovered” by the tourist industry.

We didn’t go to Badaling, the part of the wall where most Beijing tourists go, we went to a place called Jinshanling, and we walked along the wall from there to a place called Simatai. We started from Beijing early in the morning, and drove for 3 ½ hours in our rented minibus, partly on very bumpy roads. The plan was to walk 10 kilometres – passing 25 watchtowers – a trip that would take 4-5 hours. The Jinshanling part of the wall has been restored, but large parts of the Simatai part of the wall haven’t been. Simatai is also very steep, a few slopes have a 70% incline and you need both hands free. I am not in the best physical shape, I had large blisters before the walk even started, and the sun was shining and it must have been well above 35 degrees Celsius. So I was pretty worried about how I was going to cope, although I was of course looking forward to seeing the Great Wall.

Up front Kath had warned us about aggressive souvenir sellers. She was telling us that we would each be followed by one of them the whole way, and that they would probably cry a few tears at the end if we refused to buy anything. And it happened just like she said. Just after we had passed the entrance, and was headed towards the stairs we had to climb to get up on the wall itself, there was a sort of a fence in the middle of the road. There was an opening next to it large enough to allow one person through at the time. On the other side of the fence, lined up alongside it, was a group of Chinese. As we walked through the opening one by one we were paired up with one Chinese each, creating some kind of zipper effect. This was done so quietly and effectively that I was stunned. From there on they followed in our heels the whole trip, hoping to sell us something to drink and/or souvenirs. My ”shadow” was a young boy who didn’t move much more than a couple of meters away from me during the whole trip. He didn’t try to sell me anything, he just walked close by, took a break when I took a break (making me take shorter breaks than I would have liked, because I felt embarrassed when I was already lagging behind the others, and he was sitting there, staring at me), told me to be careful, offered to drag me up the hardest parts etc. All to make a connection and increase the guilt factor, according to Kath. As soon as we closed in on Simatai, he started trying to sell me a book about the wall, a T-shirt or some postcards (what I could really have used was some more water, but I had to buy that from one of the others). He had really been getting on my nerves during the whole trip, invading my space, so I refused to buy anything. And I stuck to it, even though he actually started to cry just like Kath had said, whinging about how he had to walk all the way back. I feel very guilty about not buying anything, but those were crocodile tears if I have ever seen any. When he realised I was serious about not buying he pouted and left me abruptly.

About the trip itself. First there was the steep ascent to get up to the wall itself, after that I was feeling tired already. The first part of the wall had been rehabilitated, and was therefore in good condition. But soooo steep! I tried to think only about making it from tower to tower, and take longer rests there because the wind would blow and there would be shadow. The steps were in part very high, so high that you had to use your hands to haul yourself up. As we ventured into the parts that hadn’t been rehabilitated, we are suddenly talking about proper ruins, the steps were pretty bad. A few places the steps were gone, so you had to take a detour down on the ground. We had the possibility to turn and walk back if we felt we couldn’t finish, the chauffeur would wait until a certain time before he drove to Simatai to pick us up (an arrangement he didn’t stick to by the way, he left the three people who didn’t make the trip behind when he left early, so that we had to drive back and pick them up). I was tempted,  but it would have been a personal defeat to turn around and head back. 
 

Besides I wanted to take part in the picnic lunch we were supposed to have, I had some kind of romantic notion that this would be a very nice thing. Kath had early on shown us a tower in the distance, which unlike the others had a three on the top (I actually believed we would be sitting underneath that tree on the tower roof, which of course was impossible), where we would eat our lunch. So I did stick to it – with many breaks – and when we got to the lunch place it was too late to turn around. I felt at that time that it would be impossible for me to walk even one more meter. But I had no choice, and Kath claimed that the hardest part was behind us, and that we only had 8 more towers left to go. It was so hot, I was so tired, and for each step I took I felt like someone was sticking knifes into my feet. I seriously considered throwing myself off one of the towers as an alternative to finishing the trip…

Along the way Kath sometimes reminded me of an aerobic instructor I once knew, who was always saying ”come on now, only ten more rounds”. And then you would struggle to do ten more rounds, and the instructor would say ”oh come on, I know you have ten more in you” etc. When we finally arrived at Simatai – having seen it in the distance for a long time - I thought we just had to get to the last tower and then the trip would be over. But of course it wasn’t that simple. It turned out we had the choice of walking across a suspension bridge, and then walking up a steep stretch of the wall, and then sliding down some kind of cable thing into the valley below. None of us could bear the thought of that (the wall stretch, that is). Instead we sat down on our behinds and slid down a steep slope, and then proceeded to climb down a ladder to get down to the valley below. At first I didn’t think much of this, I am not afraid of heights. But what I hadn’t considered was how tired I was, and the way my arms and legs were shaking as a result of this. It was a simple wooden ladder, with steps pretty far apart. So the climb was a bit of a nightmare, I was actually worried that I would fall of the ladder because of my shaking legs. And I hadn’t enough strength in my arms to hold myself out from the ladder, so I had to sort of let myself slide down, getting bruised in the process. And we still wasn’t at our destination. We had to keep on walking, along a narrow path alongside a dam, down some steps, crossing and walking alongside a river (I seem to remember two camels, a donkey and some white horses, but this might have been a hallucination). Finally around a bend, and then: Toilets, cold water and our air-conditioned bus. What bliss! And then the 3 ½ hours bus ride (110 kilometres) back to Beijing. I wasn’t the only tired person on that bus, I think we had all been caught by surprise about how difficult the trip was. But even if this was a really tough day I am glad that I did it. It was after all a once in a lifetime experience, something that I will remember for the rest of my life. The Great Wall is incredibly beautiful, lying there majestically with Mongolia on the one side and Greater Beijing on the other. And on the whole trip we didn’t see one other tourist, which is a really good thing.

Quite a lot of garbage was to be seen, especially in the towers. This was awful to see, and we wanted to make sure that we at least would not leave any of our garbage behind. There was an episode with Steve’s ”shadow”. When we had eaten lunch in the one tower, this guy had volunteered to collect all of our garbage in a plastic bag. As he was walking away from us with the bag he was walking toward one of the windows. He cast a look over his shoulder, and saw us looking at him. So he changed direction and put the plastic bag into his pack. When we got to Simatai the shadows started their sales pitch, and after that most of them walked back, while we climbed down the aforementioned ladder. Steve had refused to buy anything from his shadow. So when Steve was climbing down the ladder, suddenly the plastic bag with the garbage in it was coming down like a projectile, not far from where he was standing on the ladder, and landing below with a thud.