"Heroes of the Wall"

"Heroes of the Wall"

On Saturday, our guide, Lisa,

had set up a busy sightseeing day for us.  We met her with a driver, early that morning, and headed North to the Great Wall at JuYong Pass.

This is the closest part of the Great Wall to Beijing, and it's also one of the best-preserved.  Our guide was really smart--she knew to get us there early before the throngs of tourists hit.  We arrived at about 8:30AM, and promptly started climbing. 

The climb took us a little over two hours--we had to make quite a few stops along the way--it was 32C and very, very "hazy", AND we took lots of pictures and lots of pictures were taken of us.  And as Chaz says, we're in shape, it's just the wrong shape--rather more round than is optimal for that kind of climb!

Before we left the States, we'd been told by the agency that there would be some people who had never seen fair-skinned, blue-eyed people before, and that people would want to touch our hair, or take pictures of us.  Our guide told us that the Chinese are very friendly, but can be very shy--they may really, REALLY want to take pictures, but may be too afraid to ask.  On the way up the wall, we saw a lot of people taking pictures of us while trying to appear as if they weren't.  We also had a LOT of people just ask if they could take pictures of us, most of them really wanted to take pictures with Maddy and Jeremy, not with us grownups.  They were particularly smitten with Maddy for some reason--they'd smile, point, call their friends over, wave to her, say things to her, some touched her hair, or rubbed her cheek.  One group of about 8 women who told us that they were from Mongolia wanted pictures with Maddy and Jeremy.  Every single woman had to have a picture with Maddy and Jeremy with their camera--that picture session lasted easily 10 minutes.

The way up was pretty tough--not all of the steps are even, and some of the tiles are worn clean through.  The sun was hot, and there was only a slight breeze.  There were several towers along the way, these were cool and dark, and the breeze in them was wonderful.  We were considering not going all the way to the top tower, until Iwe ran into a 70-year-old couple from Ireland, who were coming down from the top tower.  The woman said that it was worth it, and told me, "You're just kids, you can do it!".   We climbed to the top of the top tower, and the view was amazing, even with the haze.  At the top, we had another picture session with some other men who didn't speak any English, they all wanted pictures with all of us, and seemed particularly interested in taking pictures with Maddy.   They all wanted to pat her head, and were all smiles.  They seemed really impressed that a little girl made it all the way to the top. 

 

On the way back down, we ran into a French group, some Australians, Germans, Russians (I think) and a few Iranian men who insisted on giving their business card to Chaz once they found out he was American.  All of these folks were very, very friendly and very cordial.  We got more stares on the way down--well, mostly Maddy got the stares, and more pictures with random strangers who spoke almost no English had to be taken.  On the way down, our guide's wisdom shone through--there were a lot of people going up the wall.  She told us that on really busy days, people who work at the park will stand along the wall with bullhorns and exhort people to keep moving, because they hold up the crowd if they stop to rest. 

 

Chairman Mao apparently once said that if you climb the Great Wall, that makes you a "Hero of the Wall".

We paid something like $6 each to get little ID cards with our pictures on them, certifying that All in all, the experience was amazing, and even though it's cliché to have climbed the great wall and gotten our "Hero" cards for having made it to the top, I wouldn't trade it for anything!