The Great Wall of China.
on Mary In Cambodia (Cambodia), 18/Feb/2012 12:55, 34 days ago
The Great Wall.(The opinions expressed are the author's own and do not reflect those of VSO.Though I have finished my placement I have not yet reached home,)Today Mairin and I went to the Great Wall of China at Badaling about 40 Km north of Beijing. We were picked up by our tour guide at 7.30. who informed us with a smile that the temperature was a wonderful 6 degrees. Since we had donned every item of clothing we possessed ---thermal long johns, trousers, thermal long sleeved vest, shirt, polo neck jumper, fleecy, travel waistcoat,'michelin man' coat, woolly hat, double socks, boots, long woolly scarf wound several times around. and 2 pairs of gloves each, we felt a bit foolish.The journey was pleasant with lots of historical information in pretty understandable English. I loved the sincerity and obvious pride of this young lady as she told us of 22 million people living in Beijing, of how the Emperor Judee choose the site for the capital city Beijing, for 4 reasons, which were-- shelter and security in the valley between 2 mountain ridges, a river for luck(y), the beginning of the silk road, and of course the advice of every wise man of note in northern China.The sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky left us totally unprepared for the biting wind and freezing air that hit us when the mini-bus door opened.  I have never experienced such cold. Even with all the layers our fingers, toes and noses were numb in minutes.The Great wall originally stretched for 10,000 Km and is known as the biggest cemetery in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people died while working on the wall and were buried in it. This information was kept secret at the time for obvious reasons.Thousands of soldiers spent their whole lives guarding the wall. In a time before telecommunications, information was passed by smoke signals sent out by burning wolves dung.The wall is an impressive structure snaking across the landscape, curving up and down with the terrain. Even when we got to the top by a sort of bob sleigh, the going was tough just making our way to the watch tower and the freezing wind grew even stronger. Mairin sat in a corner and began to paint  the Great Wall in her journal, soon we were  surrounded by interested onlookers. This attention plus numb fingers had us moving on quickly.Because we arrived early there were no queues to go up or come down and the wall was not crowded. Some queues were forming as we descendrd, though nothing to what we were told can be expected in Summer when 1 million people visit daily.We were accompanied by a couple from Shri Lanka, an Indian man, his sister and 2 young daughters. We all tried in vain to persuade the driver to turn on the heating, No luck !As usual on these trips we were herded into a jade factory, a long speech on the wonders of jade and a very hard sell, which we resisted with great difficulty. Mairin was walked into trying on a bangle which she was told needed to be a snug fit. At 260 Euro she was not about to buy it and they almost had to amputate her thumb to get it off. She's still moaning in pain!The Ming Tomb is still a bit of a mystery to me. We were shown around a museum and told a bit about the Ming Dynasty. I thought this was a preparation for visiting the tomb, but we were quickly directed back into the mini-bus and shunted on to the next hard sell. Silk, this time.Ah well, you win some, you lose some. All in all it was a memorable day.