The best part about tours in Asia is that invariably you get dragged to shops along the way under the guise about learning something and the end stop is the gift shop. The first stop on the day-long trip to the Great Wall at Simatai was a place that made vases and other jewelery. They were quite nice, but some were expensive as hell, upwards of $9k to $45k. Well, naturally being a man of meager means I had to take a pass at them. I mean, what the hell would I do with a vase that’s more than $10, let alone a piece of decoration that had no utility?
But I digress.
There are five major stops for the Great Wall outside of Beijing. Most people go to Badaling, so you can go visit the Ming Tombs on the way back. It’s the closest to the city, and the most touristy and crowded. We decided to go to Simatai, which is quieter, further away and on rougher terrain.
After a very good lunch, we took a cable car up from the parking lot and hiked about 20 minutes up stairs to get to the wall. My roboknee quit after about 2 minutes, so I gimped up the stairs. I kept remembering “pole, pole!” from Kilimanjaro but that didn’t help much when your knee felt like it was on fire.
I never imagined that I’d ever actually see the Great Wall in person. Growing up in BFE, Indiana, you sort of had to rely on National Geographic and the library to see the world. Now I was on the Great Wall, built by millions and will outlast me. It was humbling and yet very cool.
Oh, the Klingons. There were women who were helping pour tourists up the Great Wall, and would later ambush you to sell you various touristy things, like postcards, shirts and the like. The Klingons were pretty much on me since I was having a rough time. I felt boxed in, and having to negotiate rough terrain, it was a bitch. I managed to trip and roll my ankle and come down funny on my left knee because they would crowd you. I also managed to slip down stairs and come down hard on my right wrist and tore my pants. Fun times, I tell you.
On the way down, we found something called “The Flying Fox”, which involved being harnessed and slid down several hundred yards of zipline over a lake. It was quite fun and I was a bit frightened of ending up in the drink and trashing my camera gear. But it was quite fun and we made it down successfully.
I felt completely wiped because we did what amount to 4 hours of fun hiking over rough terrain that I wasn’t really prepared for. I was tired and wanted to nap before going out for the night. But our final stop was for the evening was at a Chinese Medicine center and we got an explanation of the science behind it. Apparently, after an 8 year program, practitioners of Chinese Medicine can feel your wrists with both hands and supposedly be able to diagnose what’s wrong with you. I was in perfect health, except for the fact that I’m overweight. I was floored. Stunned, I tell you. Stunned! And they wanted me to buy random pills for $73 a month that would allegedly take care of this. All sarcasm aside, I think they were able to get an idea of people’s issues through the art of the interview and asking leading questions. I don’t know much of the science behind it, but it was interesting to get an idea of what it meant.
We got back at the hotel around 8 and were wiped. The plan was to get cleaned up and head out for the evening, but I fell asleep on the bed while sorting out my camera gear and backing up photos. What an exhausting day…
