Great Wall, great workout !
Trip Start
Oct 07, 2009
1
4
18
Trip End
Oct 24, 2009
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Where I stayed
China World Hotel Beijing
Simatai, China
Friday, October 9, 2009
We met our tour guide (Andy (Lin) and driver at the hotel around 8 a.m. to ensure we had enough time at the wall. Once we were in the car we learned that it would be about a 2 hour drive to the section of the wall that we were going to explore.
Upon arriving at the Great Wall at Simatai, we learned that we were going to be doing a bit of hiking, actually a lot of hiking! This was because The Great Wall at Simatai sits on top of a steep mountain range! The choice was to take a gondola up part-way then hike a very steep section of the mountain to get to the middle section of the Great Wall, or we could hike a longer but not as steep trail up the mountain to the beginning of the Great Wall. No matter how we managed it, to walk on the wall we were going to have to hike quite a bit. Well we decided that we would hike the longer trail which brought us to a lower section of the Wall then we hiked the entire Wall to the
last tower tourists can no longer pass. It was well worth it. The further along the wall the better the views were.
This is one of the most amazing sites I have seen. You can see so many different perspectives
ot the wall including how steep some sections are and the width of the wall in various areas. The fact that they built this wall so many years ago without any heavy equipment or major tools is mystifying. The beauty up close is much. It took us about 2.5 hours to do the hike. We ended up hiking the steep trail down and taking the gondola down some of the way so we could eat lunch at a reasonable time.
We had lunch in the town of Simatai at a very small place. We sat on the roof top with views of the Great Wall and Andy ordered and had the food brought to us. This was real Chinese cooking. It was excellent!
After lunch it was back in the car for another 2 hour ride back to Beijing. It was an uneventful ride back.
We decided we were still a bit full from lunch, so we had dinner at the Lounge. They were serving appetizers and desserts.
Comments
Incredible!
Wow, the pictures are amazing, you took some great shots. It must be spectacular in person. You're getting quite a workout!
Great photos!
Bob,
Thanks so much for sharing your trip. China is the one place I'd most like to experience.
Michael
Very nice indeed, it seems one get a better view of the wall than in Badeling were I was some years ago. Great I enjoyed looking at your photos. How can I do something like that? My e-mail:robertus690@hotmail.com