The Great Wall of China
A cold day in China!
So far we've stopped at a number of places to see various handicrafts made and the Tombs of the Ming Emperors but as we rode the bus into the area of The Great Wall I was amazed at the immensity of it. To see the wall structure disappear off into the distance going up and down over the mountains was for lack of other words - incredible. One thing that struck me immediately was that it didn't just go through the valleys but right up over the tops of the mountains. It was later in the day when we got there and you could see the silhouette of the wall and the guard towers going up and over the mountains. What a project using human labor to build.
Again, left click on the picture to enlarge.
As we drove up the highway we came upon a place where the highway intersected with a section of the wall. In the picture below you can see the parking area of the tour buses on the left side. As we were nearing the parking area Brian was telling us that if anyone wanted to hike up the wall to the top of the mountain it was 4,000 steps and it was OK with him but he had been up there a number of times and he would just stay there at the bus. By the way it was around 32 degrees (but felt like 10 degrees) and some areas of the path on the wall was covered with snow and ice so be careful.
The picture below was taken a little ways up the steps and you can see how steep the mountain was. After going this far it didn't look that far up to the top (Yeah, right! The grand canyon doesn't look that deep either) so I decided to see if I could make it to the top. About 3 or 4 of the others in the group were some distance ahead of me. Most of the steps had an average rise of about 8 inches but then there were those that were worn more or cut not so high and only 4 inches high. And then there was an occasional one that was like 18 inches high. Keeping an eye on the steps is advisable as you climb but stop when you want to enjoy the view in order to prevent skinned shins.
Below is the view looking up ahead. A couple of interesting things I noted was that just as we began to start up the wall from the parking lot a large group of beautiful women were coming down. They were all bundled up with the same coats and had sashes with the names of countries on them. Apparently they were contestants in the Miss World contest and had been there to visit the wall.
At another spot further up there were a whole lot of locks attached to the handrail with short chains. There must have been a couple hundred of them. I think that they were left after filming a segment of the reality TV show "The Great Race" there.
Below are the 4,000 steps, didn't count them - just taking Brian's word for it but I think there was at least that many!
Below you can see that there was quite a bit of ice left from the snow storm that hit that part of China a couple days before we got there. Also, way off in the distance you can see the silhouette of the wall as it disappears over the mountains.
Another view below from close to the top of the area we were in. Brian said that in the days that the wall was in use there would be 2 or 3 guards stationed in the guard towers. There was a place where a fire could be built to keep warm but that had to be a real miserable job doing guard duty let alone getting the wood up there to start with.
There are many websites on the internet to learn about The Wall so won't bore you with many details here. I like the Wikipedia sites for information as they don't hit you with a bunch of advertising. Below is the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
Just a few brief details:
The Wall was started around 7th century BC but was primarily built and rebuilt between the 5th and 16th centuries to protect the northern borders from invaders (the Mongols were particularily nasty that way). It has been surveryed to be at least 5,500 miles long including 223 miles of trenches and 1,387 miles of natural barriers such as hills and rivers.
The most sturdy parts of the wall was built during the Ming dynasty (the Ming guys again) using brick and stone instead of rammed earth used in the early parts. Those Ming's were very enterprising.
Life is good.
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