A Trini on the Great Wall

Soyi­ni Grey

For the vis­i­tor, the most im­por­tant con­sid­er­a­tion is what they want from their vis­it. Is it to achieve a phys­i­cal mile­stone, or do they want to ex­pe­ri­ence amaz­ing views of Bei­jing and take great pho­tos?

At 20,000km long, there is no hu­man who can re­al­is­ti­cal­ly achieve those steps. How­ev­er, there are week-long hik­ing tours that will lead you through this phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of Chi­nese in­ge­nu­ity and proac­tive­ness.

For the av­er­age vis­i­tor, the Bei­jing sec­tions are eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble, pop­u­lar in peak months, and of­fer amaz­ing views with great nooks to cre­ate last­ing mem­o­ries.

Chi­na’s Great Wall is a re­al-life ar­chi­tec­tur­al mas­ter­piece that pre­dates the birth of Christ, mak­ing it wor­thy of be­ing named one of the an­cient won­ders of the world, un­like the Hang­ing Gar­dens of Baby­lon and the Colos­sus of Rhodes, both of which may have ex­ist­ed on­ly in leg­end. The list of the New 7 Won­ders of the World cor­rects that over­sight.

It is al­so a UN­ESCO World Her­itage Site be­cause of its un­fath­omably long his­to­ry and sig­nif­i­cance as an iden­ti­fi­able an­cient ar­chi­tec­tur­al mas­ter­piece. The Wall is a se­ries of struc­tures first built in the 7th cen­tu­ry BC. But what we now know as the Great Wall of Chi­na was most­ly con­struct­ed dur­ing the Ming Dy­nasty (1368–1644).

UN­ESCO’s des­ig­na­tion recog­nis­es that its con­struc­tion “re­flects col­li­sion and ex­changes be­tween agri­cul­tur­al civil­i­sa­tions and no­madic civil­i­sa­tions in an­cient Chi­na,” pay­ing spe­cif­ic at­ten­tion to the far­sight­ed­ness of the de­ci­sion to con­struct such a mag­nif­i­cent struc­ture as a de­fence against ma­raud­ing tribes.

Get­ting there while in Bei­jing was an ap­prox­i­mate­ly one-hour bus ride, as we were based in the Haid­i­an Dis­trict. Our jour­ney be­gan on a rainy Fri­day, which forced us to push our vis­it from morn­ing to ear­ly af­ter­noon. The Long Wall, which is its di­rect trans­la­tion from Chi­nese, is con­struct­ed with bricks made from lime and stone of un­equal size. Be­cause of this and the rain, our guide warned of slip­pery steps.

A col­league who made this vis­it two years pri­or warned of ir­reg­u­lar steps that ought to be ex­pe­ri­enced in per­son. The steps at the Wall are ei­ther very high—pos­si­bly eight–nine inch­es in height—or an un­usu­al­ly low two inch­es. You can eas­i­ly lose your bal­ance, which would make for an un­pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ence, so be care­ful. Re­gard­less of fit­ness, you are best ad­vised to hold on­to the rail­ings whether as­cend­ing or de­scend­ing, es­pe­cial­ly as it is al­so very steep.

An au­dio broad­cast along the route warns vis­i­tors to ex­er­cise cau­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if el­der­ly or suf­fer­ing from car­dio­vas­cu­lar is­sues. But climbers of all ages were seen huff­ing and puff­ing along the trail.

As we made our trek in late May, light cloth­ing was rec­om­mend­ed. But we saw many well-dressed vis­i­tors mak­ing the jour­ney. One el­der­ly woman came dressed as a la­dy-who-lunched, sport­ing a styl­ish bowl cut, pearls and a red pantsuit. She wore sneak­ers, though—a con­ces­sion to com­fort over aes­thet­ics.

Our vis­it was sched­uled for two hours, which flew by quick­ly, and was ex­tend­ed by 30 min­utes since we trav­elled with a full bus­load and some of our tour mates could not get enough.

Leave time for sou­venirs. Brows­ing is fun, but light ne­go­ti­a­tion is rec­om­mend­ed when pur­chas­ing. We were warned that most of what was on of­fer was over­priced and eas­i­ly pur­chased else­where, but I snagged a Great Wall base­ball hat for $30 (Chi­nese yuan and the TTD en­joy an al­most one-to-one ex­change rate).

The Great Wall is a must-vis­it, and an easy ad­di­tion to the buck­et list you nev­er knew you had.