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The Snowy Great Wall Of China

Since my post got eaten yesterday, here is take two.

The Great Wall tour was the highlight of the day. I began at 7:45 by meeting a driver in the hotel lobby, who took me to another hotel to pick up other tourists. I was happy to see these tourists were the British couple I met the day before. We rode together to the Grand Hyatt to pick up a Californian expat now living in Sydney (though I never caught his name). Once the four of us were together we walked to the other side of the hotel to meet the tour bus, filled with three others: Neil, an Aussie by birth who has lived in Paris most of his life, a pleasant woman of retiree age from Helsinki, and a French woman working for the UN as a nuclear inspector. John, our tour guide from the day before, led us on this tour as well, this time on a bigger, more comfortable bus.

Richard and Judith were our British tourists. They are retirees finishing up a 7 week tour of Asia. Both were quite humorous and fun. Richard and I traded political viewpoints throughout the trip.

The Helsinki lady was quiet but friendly, chiming in with a Finnish perspective. She discussed the relationship of Finland with Sweden, which was the actual home of the mystery European couple I toured with yesterday.

Neil was the Aussie Parisian. He left Perth at the age of 22 for a global life, mainly working the Middle East supervising draftsmen. In addition to his Aussie slang, Neil spoke fluent French, albeit with an Aussie accent which amused the French woman. Though Neil was 76 years old, he later climed the slippery Great Wall with absolutely no hesitation, later telling me the Wall was the main reason he was visiting China.

Neil told us of a scare he had in 1995 when he survived through a likely infection of the Bird Flu. He spent the majority of two weeks confined to bed in Hong Kong with terrible nausea and fever, while a nearby man died of similar symptoms. Neil figures a doctor’s diagnosis of tuburculosis and subsequent treatment helped him survive, though his illness took 11kg off his weight in a terrifying span of 9 days. Neil seemed like the ultimate survivor.

Florence was our nuclear inspector, a tall, lively blonde who works for the UN and holds a Ph.D in nuclear physics. Her job is to arrive unannounced to member nations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and perform inspections of nuclear materials using instruments she carries with her in a 40kg suitcase. She speaks five languages, lives in Vienna, and is married to a Michigan-born American weapons inspector, whom she rarely sees due to the nature of their profession. We were impressed when she showed us her United Nations passport (UNLP), which provides her full diplomatic status. Florence described how she performs her work, often with nosy host nation scientists watching her every move. It sounded very James Bondish and quite out of character from such a lively, outgoing woman. We all took a liking to her.

We began our tour at the Ming Tombs, somewhat out of the city limits. The weather was better than the day before: chilly but dry. The landscape was covered in light snow. It was quite beautiful!

Our tour began in an open hall containing treasures recovered from the tombs. Many of these treasures were looted or destroyed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution of the 60s, dealing a terrible blow to Chinese history. Still, we saw exhibits of gold and silver ingots, clothing, swords, gold crowns and other beautiful artifacts from the emperors’ tombs.

The hall also had the first serious-looking Red Army guards I’ve seen here. They patrolled the hall at regular intervals with a chilly precision. Richard, my Brit friend, casually asked me if he could photograph them. I suggested he ask our tour guide, who quickly discouraged it.

As for the tombs themselves, they were mostly raised hills covered in trees. There were archways leading to the tombs which were decorative and quite symbolic of the Chinese superstitions regarding death. As a Chinese, John was very reluctant to cross through some archways due to the superstitious nature. He made an exception only because he was leading a tour group. I think they have reason to be superstitious: this is a mysterious land.

Walking near the tomb, Richard thought it remarkable that people would build such an enormous tomb for their leader. “You know, we’re building an opulent tomb for George W. Bush,” I joked, thinking of Bush’s emperor-like ways.

“A few of us Brits would be willing to contribute if it would move things forward,” Richard replied without missing a beat. Man, I love this guy.

The women in our group were getting chilled by the relentless wind, so we left the tombs for the comfort of the bus (which never seemed to be warm enough but better than being outside). A short ride later we were at a local jade jewelry store and “factory” where we learned how jade jewelry is made and then paraded around a showroom full of bored Chinese saleswomen. Most of us couldn’t wait to get on with the real tour.

Some of my fellow tourists had sensed reluctance from John for traveling to the Wall. Indeed, earlier he had expressed caution regarding the road conditions, initially suggesting we go to the closer, “inner” wall. As we toured the jade factory, John put in call to his head office and got news that the roads to the outer wall were passable. When he relayed this news to us we all cheered, having all expressed the desire to see as much as we could, weather be damned. With that, the bus headed north to the popular Balaling section of the wall.

As we drove the road narrowed to two lanes, though any snow on it had turned into nicely-melting slush. Steep mountains loomed to either side. I thought it looked like the mountains near Salt Lake City until I first saw the “inner” wall snaking above the ridges. There seemed to be few visitors to this first stop, making me glad we were continuing on up the mountains.

At Badaling we headed up the mountain as far as we could before stopping abruptly in the road. A long line of buses and cars stretched beyond the curve ahead of us. Vehicles ahead of them were stuck in the snow, meaning we had to travel to the gate in foot from there. Piling out the bus, we trudged through the melting snow to the gate.

It was a surreal sight. Red Army troops were assisting others in madly shoveling snow from the parking lot into flimsy trash bags. I’m not sure what they expected to do with these bags filled with snow but it didn’t look like a practical way of moving snow. In the crowd of snow shovelers we temporarily got separated from Florence, who later caught up with us.

The steps at the base of this section of wall did not yield clues to just how slippery the upper sections were. Looking up I could see tourists all the way up to the tallest watchtower. I began walking up with my Aussie friend, carefully maintaining one hand on the rail and cradling my camera with the other. Frequently my feet slid out from underneath me though fortunately I avoided a spill.

The view was stunning, as you can see from my gallery pictures. The surrounding mountains were dusted with snow. The wall itself was covered in 1 to 2 inches of hard-packed snow in places, making it a dangerous climb up or down. Our group traded cameras for photos of our ascent. I joked that these were ‘before’ pictures. The ‘after’ pictures would show us bruised and bloody after a long slide down.

Neil and I went as far as the second-highest tower before conceding it was insanity to go further. Our guide had expressed strong interest in leaving after only 90 minutes to avoid icy roads on the drive down, so Neil and I figured we could not safely go all the way up and still have time to descend. I fought with this decision, desperately wanting to go higher but wisely considering the danger involved. I mollified my urge to continue with the decision to come back some day when it wasn’t snowy.

Even at this level the walking was treacherous. Slick, hard-packed snow was the only walking surface. I faced a slow walk down an icy, 20-degree ramp. As the thought of a broken tailbone entered my mind, I threw out any sense of propriety and slid down the rest of the snowy ramp on my ass, waving to giggling tourists as I passed. Wet pants are temporary, I reasoned. A broken neck is forever!

Neil later followed my lead, only sliding on his feet rather than his rear. I was glad he made it down. In spite of the challenge of the climb, the view and the challenge were well worth the effort.

As the bus returned to the city, John had the driver drop us off at our respective hotels. He suggested I stop to see the local markets rather than return to my hotel, a suggestion which I took. I later ran into the chaos of the last night of Spring Festival that I mentioned in my last post. If it weren’t for the war-zone of the fireworks it would have been a good decision.

I spent the rest of the night writing about my tour before losing my post around midnight. Too tired and frustrated to rewrite it I went to bed, sleeping soundly until 6:30. Now its time to get to work planning the training sessions, the reason I’m here.

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