We are off northeast heading towards Mutianyu Great Wall with Liu driving, having organised this the previous day with the concierge.
A major new highway has been opened less than 20 days. As it’s a toll road very few cars are using it so our route is unhindered and smooth, so I am able to catch a short nap. I mean I’m on holiday, why would I want to be on the road before 8 a.m. Through the smog, which I’m getting used to and how depressing it is, I can make out the distant hills of the Huairou district.
The challenge on completing the walk is getting back down through the stalls and hawkers, which line both sides of the access route.
Now there are three routes up to the wall, walking (maybe 2 days) a short chair lift and walk (precarious) and lastly a German engineered cable car. No choice really.
It is still early and the mist is clearing from the mountains, this is real mist as the air is fresh, almost quite chilled.
The incline is steep and the cable car is a godsend – as it comes through the low mist the wall is evident. Built along the highest point of all the hills it’s an engineering feat and there can be few comparable examples in the world. They had to bring up building blocks of rock to construct this and it all started in the 13th and 14th century. Surprisingly there aren’t swarms of tourists, no more than a hundred spread along the wall as far as the eye can see. Considering just how long this section is that’s a good result. At some points along the wall I cannot see one other single soul. I knew very little about the wall and once you are on it you can see some of the detail where the main forts are located. There are intricate carvings and detail on the roof. The wall and the steps have in some places further carving. What has surprised me is the steepness in some places where you almost need to get on all fours to get the balance and movement in your body.
The chill has gone and the sun is warming up the late morning. Most of the tourists now arriving are in groups and are heavily sweatered with windbreaks, gloves and hats. They got that right if they wanted to look stupid. They look and they know how stupid they look as they desperately get their clothes off.
The few remaining Chinese tourists are in smaller, mainly family groups with small children and grandparents. They stop and pose and take it in turns to snap away; some with the old compact 35 as cameras but maybe more now with digital cameras.
I don’t think I have any wish to visit Australia, as all of those here that I have come across seem so brash and loud, not so bad as the Americans here though. Why do these visitors work on the premise that they are doing the Chinese a favour?
On completing the wall, part of it, and getting through the hawkers and street peddlers, we head of towards the Ming Tombs taking the mountain road. The car that Liu drives turns out to be a Chinese design + built and is about ten years old. It’s called Red Flag Cars and this factory has now been converted to build Audi cars, hence all the limos that the hotels use are these.
This could be Italy driving through the mountains with the hairpins if it wasn’t for the odd lone cycle rider either freewheeling down or pushing up hill. Still there are many road works with workers making block paving along the edge of the tarmac both sides. This goes on for miles with men and women doing the work. My driver tells me these are farm workers that have finished their harvests and can get additional work from the local administrative councils, which are in each of the towns.
The Ming tombs are directly north of the city so travelling west through the mountains we come down onto the plain. Here the road is marked with trees planted both sides which are painted white for the first three feet of the trunk.
The tombs are located at the low hill levels and in total there are thirteen spread across eight square miles.
The main tomb was excavated in 1956 and that’s when they discovered this vast underground complex with the equivalent of a sarcophagus and numerous cachets with the possessions of the Empress. The tomb was started during the Ming dynasty and only just completed before Ming was defeated by Qing dynasties. In the end peasants revolting destroyed part of the tombs and temples but the main underground complex was not touched.
In the complex is a “State run souvenir shop” which is the cheapest for most souvenirs to date.
Well the Olympics are coming and the whole of Beijing is extremely excited about it. So excited – that to visit the construction site is on any good tourist agenda. The scale and size of the site is amazing. The main stadium in its skeletal form of steel looks like a “birds nest” and that is what it’s supposed to be. The swimming complex is complete, a huge rectangular sealed box in the middle of the site. Either side of the roads are apartment blocks and hotels, no one under 50 floors springing up.
I still cannot get over the sheer scale of construction going on. The site out of the back of the hotel, which I can see from my room has changed dramatically in six days, with steel reinforcing, concrete going in and the shape of the outline completed.
The driver recommended the restaurant south of the hotel, about 3 blocks and so I knew exactly where it was, he took me via there on the way back to the hotel, gets a tip for that. It’s red and gold and quite a contemporary look. The worry is that it’s called South Beauty – not a bordillo. After entering the wrong restaurant, which turns out to be a cheap coffee shop with English menu’s and ‘French steak’.
It’s not known for people in China to eat on their own and I do get strange looks but once they know I have mastered the chop sticks I’m left alone.
This place had open kitchens glazed from the diners, great experience watching them prepare and cook. The live lobster was brought to my table. I’m supposed to touch it. I summarise it’s alive claws and all. The crab too is alive. Lucky I didn’t order fruit de mer.
Each large decent eating establishment seems to have two to three waitresses for a couple of tables. These are always the young girls and then a more mature woman seems to oversee an area of the floor.
As per the advice offered I get to the “South Beauty” for 5.30. Most people eat early then off to bars. By seven the place is clearing out, the rush is over and I couldn’t eat another thing.