Beijing for Tourists, Part Three

Standing on the Great Wall has been one of the highlights of our entire trip.  (And it remains in the top five, if not the top three, up through the middle of July.)  We have met a few travelers who are not moved by the Great Wall.  It holds little interest for them.  Not us. We were quite moved by it - enough so that we got up at 5am our last full day in Beijing to catch our ride at 6am in an attempt to get to the section of wall at Mutianyu before anyone else.  It worked, too!  We had the wall to ourselves for nearly an hour (spotting only an employee and a woman selling drinks and snacks).  The first tourists we saw were a Chinese couple, the male half of which stopped to light a cigarette before ascending a steep stair case that was almost vertical! (The cigarette this gentleman lit is symbolic for how much Chinese males smoke.  Apparently smoking is viewed as manly, and you are less of a man if you don't.) The next two people we saw (also Chinese) wanted to stop and take photos with us. We never really felt crowded while on the wall and were quite happy in our decision to get up and tackle the it early.

During those first 45 minutes we both felt waves of joy and awe.  We stopped frequently for photos, but even more frequently to muse and discuss the amazement we felt, the energy and flood of emotion, from just standing on the Great Wall.  For us, the Great Wall was always a spectacular feat, a true wonder of the world,  that other people went to.  It was too far, and in a country too difficult to travel in, to be a realistic destination.  Our wall experience would have been less personal and far less powerful if we had shared it a few hours later with several thousand tourists.  It is selfish, but it is also true.  We got to the wall around 7:30 in the morning, and as hard as it was to get up while it was still dark out in order to accomplish our early arrival, it was far superior to the alternative - a lazy morning, a 10 am arrival, and having to compete with thousands of rabid tourists for the best photo op, the best view, and the next cable car.  Because we were alone on the wall we could take our time, while focusing less on framing photos to have as few other tourists as possible and focusing more on breathing in the epic struggle and years of toiling that made the Great Wall one of human kinds most amazing achievements.

The section of Great Wall at Mutianyu is great to visit for three reasons: 

1. It is less visited than the section at Badaling, which is longer and closer to Beijing.
2. Bill Clinton visited the Great Wall here and his red, sweaty face is blown up in several photos around the premises.
3. There is a luge course set up so that one can ride the cable car up (as we did) and sled down a hokey, but extremely fun luge track on the way down (as we also did).

Notes:
We hired a driver to take us to the Ming Tombs (another popular tourist destination just outside Beijing) and the Great Wall.  He was happy, polite, and really friendly.  He even pulled the car over on our way back so Jeff could jump out and find a toilet (there are tons of public toilets in China, which gets a big "like" from us, especial the man with a small bladder) when we were stuck in nasty Beijing traffic. Our driver's name was Gary and he made our trip to the Great Wall even better! (he also gets extra credit for showing up on time at 6am with a big smile and a full case of water in his trunk).

We met two young ladies from Seattle on the Great Wall(!).

The famous Beijing haze is as horrible as everyone says.  The worst smog we saw in China turned out to be in Chengdu, but the foggy pollution in Beijing still made L.A. look downright clear.  This terrible smog could be felt in our lungs and eyes, but it was also irritating when we went to the Great Wall and couldn't see much more than a kilometer or two.  Toxic haze should be hated for many reasons, but we found it most offensive for the way it ruined our great wall photos! (Not really.)