...as per one of the previous Blog postings, the wall is over 4000km long, and so as you'd expect, much of has been left "au natural". This means that over time, it has/is disintegrating.Having said this, the Chinese have restored a number of "important sites and locations", and these are the ones that people go to visit.
These locations are all over.....some are close to Beijing, some are near Qinhuangdao etc. etc. and this weekend I went to 2 of these sites just outside of Qinhuangdao (Miranda and I had previously visited a third one, Old Dragon's Head...or where the wall goes into the Yellow Sea) .
The two locations I visited are called Shanhaiguan and Jiumenkou. They are about 1.5 hours away from the college (a 3RMB bus ride - bus #32 from the college to the downtown Tesco/Livestrong mall transfer stop, then bus #25 from there)...or a much easier 70RMB cab ride (home).
1st location - Shanhaiguan
This is a "walled city" and was an important battle location for the Chinese in terms of protecting the country from attacks from the North. This spot is also known as "The First Pass Under Heaven"...or the East Gate. Here, not only have the Chinese restored a fairly long section of the wall/watch towers, but they have also rebuilt/restored much of the "original town" that was located here.
To visit this location was 60RMB, and to be honest, it was a bit disappointing. As dumb as it sounds, it kind of felt "fake", complete with (many) souvenir booths on, around and beside the wall. (pictures below)
2nd location - Jiumenkou
If The First Pass Under Heaven was a bit of a let down, this location more than made up for it! Jiumenkou was absolutely breathtaking...and EXACTLY what I had hoped to see/experience for my Great Wall visit.
This location seems to be little known, and is hardly even mentioned in any of the tourist guide books - which is downright amazing...because it has it all (thanks again to Miranda and her Mom who stumbled on it and told me to make sure I visited it)! Anyway, from Shanhaiguan, you take a 70RMB round trip cab (no buses go here) to this location. The trip is about 20 minutes each way and takes you on a little 2-lane (kind of scary in a cab...see previous comments regarding cabs) through the countryside until you kind of pop into a valley and happen upon this site.
There is little that I can say other than this was amazing and to refer to the pictures below!
General Comments on the Wall
All the literature/signs talk about the Great Wall as actually being pretty useless in terms of defending the country from an attack. They say that is was really more of a "make work"/Emperor's big ego type project that kept hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens working/busy. At the end of the day, I think it was just far too long and unwieldy to really act as deterrent to attacks...and history has it that several times it was "breached" by enemy forces who simply bribed some guards who then "allowed these enemy forces to slip by".
Anyway....here are the pictures!!!!
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