Entry tags:

great wall, national holiday, simatai

National Holiday trip! The Great Wall

Simatai


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Here's something you should all see…Sunrises in Beijing. Quite a sight. Quite unbelievable. Get this, obviously, sun comes up over the horizon, but then…get this…the sun disappears again…until it does a second sunrise over the pollution. No joke, it TOTALLY blocks out the sun. God, this city. I'm going to sound like a chain smoker when I get home just from breathing.
Anyway, I planned a little spur of the moment trip. Well, not really planned, the night before around 10 I'm like, Kat, Andy, let's go to the wall tomorrow. So we woke up at 6am with our first mission, to get to the long-distance bus station. The guidebook said that you go there, take a bus to Miyun and then a cab to Simatai (expensive!!). Well, we hopped on the metro (first time!) and went downtown to the bus station that we weren't even sure existed. It did, and thanks to Andy's Chinese skills, we asked for a bus and it turns out one was leaving in about 5 minutes, STRAIGHT to Simatai! What luck!! There and back! Took about 3 hours to get there, on a little shitty bus. A couple other foreigners there that were happy to see us, lol. A guy from England, who was really nice, and two other guys, one was Brazilian (Christian would have been so excited) and I'm not sure where the other one was from. None of them knew each other, but they were all backpacking in China (or in the English dudes case, the world). One of them was, get this, a professional whistler. No joke. We had him whistle for us, it was pretty amazing, lol. I've never heard a professional whistler before!
Anyway, about Simatai. Found it in my guidebook, all of them actually. It's one of the least restored sections of the great wall, out of the way of TONS of tourists like the famous 'Badaling' to the northwest of Beijing. This was 3 hours to the Northwest. It was supposed to have some really intense climbing, according to the guidebook, even 70degree angles. So we get there. Look at what we are supposed to climb and…damn. Seriously, the very first stretch was nearly 70degrees!! Part of the wall we had to use our hands to do some rock climbing!! Definitely not restored very much. Occasional cement holding it together, but that was about it. It was hard work! Nothing but steps for the two hours it took us to get to the top. Which was amazing. We did amazing time getting up there, it was hard work though. Nice breeze, nice weather, can't complain.
First thought when looking up the hills, 'Holy shit, We are all idiots' And then once you get to a tower and look out, it's definitely one of those times where you look around and go 'Holy shit…I live in China'. Which, in a city as westernized as Beijing, doesn't always come to the forefront of your thoughts.
The views were amazing though. When you look back you could see the wall in the other direction snaking through the hills on the crests all the way into the distance where it fades into the haze. Really an amazing sight. Looking to the right you get to see mountains. Beautiful sight, not like the mountains we've seen before. Those Chinese landscape paintings, you know those? The ones with the 'stylistic' mountains that disappear at the bottom? They actually do that! They are all surrounded in blue haze (natural or pollution, who knows…probably pollution) and you can see the dark crests of the mountains and then they fade into nothing at the bottom. It's a beautiful site. Nice place, worth the trek. I pity the people who didn't come with us because it was 'too early'.

I would definitely recommend this place to people in china who want to visit the wall. Took us 3 hours to get back, getting us into the city around 7, subway it back to the school and then Andy and I, to counter affect all the good that exercise could have done us, go to McDonald's. Then promptly go to the dorms and collapse. Exhausting day, but very fun and a successful outing. Nice to get out of Beijing for a day. We were all proud to have made it there and back very cheaply. All came out to less than $20USD. I love this country.



I don't have many Great Wall tips since I've only been to one part of it, but here's what I think
- Always wear the right shoes! Traction and good soles to protect your feet are VERY important
- Not that I know anything else, but from my experience, the further away from the crowds and the city, the better. Don't just visit Badaling, head over to Simatai, or even further outside of Beijing area (it's like, a city-state) if you want. A friend of mine went to the wall over by Qinhuangdao (Over by the ocean/Bohai Sea) about 3 hour train ride from Beijing. It's where the Wall meets the sea and close by is the first 'gate' of the wall in the east, apparently it's pretty amazing too.
- I wouldn't recommend wearing jeans…hiking wearing jeans is stupid.
- Either bring a small backpack, or fit everything you need for the day into your pockets. You'll want your hands free to climb.