The Far East: Days 7 and 8

Wednesday was a public holiday - the Dragon Boat Festival - in China, so Catherine and Martyn had the day off work. Once again, however, it was unbearably hot - topping out at 36C - so aside from a brief trip to the shop I didn't do much all day. Dinner was also a subdued affair: we went to a nice burger place, which wasn't as fast-food-ish as normal, but it wasn't all that special.

Wednesday evening brought us another thunderstorm, as did Thursday morning. In fact, it rained quite a lot on Thursday; the temperature came down with the rain and made it feel an awful lot more pleasant. Even in the afternoon sun I don't think it got much higher than 27C.

Mao Zedong once said "you cannot call yourself a real man until you have climbed the Great Wall". Well, today (Thursday) I am a real man. Catherine organised for me to go on a tour to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, organised by China Culture Center. At a cost of Y350 (about £40), including entry, lunch and transport, it was really good value and the tour guide was really informative (and spoke very good English, which made a big difference).

After getting a taxi to the CCC - easier said than done but I got there in the end - I met up with the other 15 or so people on the tour; there were three Norwegians, two Germans, a couple from Hong Kong, at least six American students, and one other British guy from Oxfordshire.  At about 9am we set out by coach for the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.

First, let's clear up some myths. One: the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space. While it can be seen from low earth orbit, at that height you're low enough to discern motorways and other features too. Two: the Great Wall is not one big long wall. It has various overlapping sections, some of which have been restored to something like their original condition. Moreover, there have been various walls built at various times, some as simple as piles of earth and some as complicated as small fortresses.

The most popular section of the Great Wall is that at Badaling, which was visited by Nixon, Gorbachev, Reagan, Thatcher and the Queen. Unfortunately it is hideously touristy, and I'm quite glad that this tour avoided Badaling in favour of Mutianyu, which Clinton visited but is otherwise relatively peaceful. 

To get up from the car park to the wall, you can either walk, take a cable car, or a chair lift; coming down you can also use the toboggan run. Unfortunately when we got there it was raining heavily, so we opted for the cable car, which whisks you up the hillside in just three minutes. Such was the rain, however, that when we got to the top we couldn't see a thing at first - it was what I'd call Scotch mist.

We had about an hour and a half on the wall, which is about 3m wide and follows the contours of the hills, so there is some climbing to be done just in walking along the top of it. The mist cleared gradually, and by the time I'd walked along the wall for about an hour the views were stunning, made all the more mysterious by the presence of small wispy clouds of white mist.

The Wall is set quite high up in the hills, using the natural contours as much as possible to add to the defences, so all you can see for miles around is hilly countryside. It is seriously impressive, and Richard Nixon's pronouncement on seeing the wall in 1972 says it better than I ever could:

"This is a Great Wall and only a great people with a great past could have a great wall and such a great people with a such a great wall will surely have a great future."

All morning there was thunder in the air, but the only serious rain we had all day was as we were heading up to the wall. The rain put paid to coming down on the toboggan run - that was closed - and the thunder also briefly halted the cable car. Eventually we all got down the mountain, where we were taken to lunch in a nearby restaurant; the food was traditional Chinese local food, not dissimilar to what I'd had on previous nights but in a rather more upmarket setting. The food was excellent, and the conversation was great fun with it being so international.

After lunch, we had an hour's drive to the Ming Tombs, the resting place of 13 Chinese emperors. The burial mounds are provided with huge courtyards in reverence to their honoured dead; the courtyards provided more of the same style of architecture, but this time with a knowledgeable guide rather than a glorified tape player. It was interesting, not just for the tombs but the guide's take on Chinese history. 

The tombs are set in a beautiful u-shaped valley pointing south towards Beijing, chosen for its good feng shui. To provide an entrance-way to the tombs, there is a long avenue of arches. One section has eighteen pairs of statues lining the path between the arches; first there are four 'meritorious officials', then four civil officials, then four generals, and then four of each of six animals: horse, qilin (a small dragon), elephant, camel, xiezhi (unicorn), and lion, with two of each standing, and two of each sitting. This 'sacred way' made an excellent addition to the drudge of the Ming Tombs themselves, and the bus collected us at the other end. All in all, an excellent day out. 

On the bus ride home we passed the Birds Nest stadium which hosted the Olympics in 2008 but which is, unfortunately, now a white elephant. The design is unusual, and certainly interesting, but it's not the nicest-looking stadium I've ever seen. Moreover, the whole area around the stadium has been concocted out of nothing, and seems to be too out of keeping to survive for long: Beijingers don't need huge seven-star hotels, they need roads that aren't clogged and more subway lines (among many other things).

Catherine hadn't been feeling terribly well so we had a relatively low-key dinner in a bar nearby, watching some of the football. Catherine and Martyn have been busy sorting out stuff for coming home in July, finishing off bits of work and getting a house sorted, so I had a quiet evening writing this blog. And I think I'll stop now before I get any more self-referential.