Chickety China Part 4: The Great Wall

On Tuesday morning, we woke up early to get breakfast at the hostel and meet up with the group that was going to do the 10k hike on the "Secret Wall"--a portion of the wall that wasn't touristy and was supposed to have a great view. I quickly ordered my coffee and toast with beans (mmm, simple, but tasty) and Janetta ordered an American Breakfast and a latte (I had flashbacks to working at The Baker, but their American breakfast is slightly different as is to be expected in a different restaurant). The food took a while to come out and we had to take it to go or miss the bus to the Wall. I was able to finish my coffee in a nice relaxed fashion though. ^_^

We had to walk a few blocks with our guide to pick up some folks from another hostel, and then we got on a small bus rented out by Leo's. The bus ride took a couple hours and the AC was on full blast even though it was chilly, because the bus apparently didn't have the ability to defrost the front windows without freezing us all. It was bearable though and Janetta and I got to chat with some cool dudes from Belgium (yes! I have a contact for when I relocate to Europe and want to drink good beer!), though we had to talk over the ever increasing volume of the South Park episodes being played on the buses TV.

We got to the Wall, and that's when the stairs started. I swear, China is made of stairs and not enough of them go down, it's like going through an MC Escher. After the eternity of the climb up to the Wall to start the proper part of the hike--and it was a hike as this part of the Wall wasn't maintained in the way the more popular parts are and there were trees, shrubs and flowers growing out of this historical piece of defensive architecture--we paused to hear a brief history of this part particular part of the wall and the legend behind a huge break in it. The part of the Wall we were on was between old Mongolia and China and was built by farmers who lived on practically no food, many died and were buried in the Wall. There was some story about one of the emperors during the Ming Dynasty having previously been a farmer who worked on the construction of this part of the Wall who went crazy eating nothing but dumplings when he became emperor because he couldn't have them during the construction. The legend about the hole in the Wall was an angry or grieving (I didn't catch which) wife ran into it as a response to something her husband did or after he died (I'm great at this, I know).

The hike started off with more stairs. Going up, I was ready to turn around after 2 minutes of stair climbing, but I started a mantra of, "Nice ass" and I pushed through. When we got to the actual hiking part of it--with the mud and the trees and the dangerous holes for stairwells--I was quite happy to go the 5k up and 5k down the Wall. It was a misty, surreal, Lord of the Rings kind of day but the view when there was a break in the clouds was impressive. The Wall slithered its way across green hills and there was a town on the old Mongolian side of the Wall.

We passed through six watch towers on the Wall, some run down to nothing but the foundation of the tower and others still mostly in tact. It was sweaty and slippery, sometimes dangerous and totally worth it. I met some really cool people on the way up--chatted with an Israeli architect on holiday, the Belgian beer lovers (they spoke Flemmish, and it's close enough to Afrikaans that Janetta could speak with them, but I got no French practice *sigh*), some South Africans teaching in South Korea (we're Facebook friends now), and random other people from the UK, Argentina and Norway (we didn't talk as much, but they were cool).

While climbing down the slope to the stairs that would lead to the road we would walk down to get to the bus (why it wasn't in the parking lot where it dropped us off I don't understand), I was stung by a bee. This is the second bee sting since coming to Asia. I don't know why they are running into me, getting trapped in either my sunglasses or hair (this one made itself a trap in my dreads and when I undid my hair to try and free it, it stung me) and killing itself while make my life a little more painful. I was the third or fourth person to walk through this group of bees, and I was nervous because it sounded like a swarm and coming from a place with Africanized bees I have learned to avoid buzzing bushes. When I realized there were probably 40 bees on each side of me, I told the folks in front that I really needed them to go faster, but they couldn't because the way was steep and muddy. I didn't think to turn around. I kept on and I'm really lucky I wasn't actually in a swarm because I probably wouldn't have made it down the Wall if they had all gotten aggro and stung me. I now freak out at flying, buzzing things but don't feel as much pain with bee stings as I used to.

The fee for the hike also included lunch at a restaurant on the way home, it was decent and only a few of the dishes had meat in them. It was served in the traditional Chinese way of rice in the middle and lots of veggies and protein to choose from on the outside edge of a lazy Susan in the middle of the table. After lunch, most of the bus slept on the way back to the hostel.

When we got back, Janetta and I were too worn out to do much anything other than shower (this was when we started to go upstairs to use the communal showers with hot water rather than clench our teeth through the icy shower available in our room). Then we got some beer and chilled in the common room and chatted with more folks (I made more Facebook friends!) and went across the street to the more happening bar to hang out with our fellow hikers.

It was a good day, even if I looked like a lunatic asking people--who didn't seem to care/believe that I was stung by anything--to check if there was a stinger visible so we could pull it out of my head. Ok, maybe I'm still working on not being mad that people doubted I had been stung, but the rest of the day was pretty good.