Yesterday was a beautiful day so I decided it would be a good day to go to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was designed for royal families to escape the heat of Beijing, and is ranked among the most beautiful gardens in the world. As you can imagine, the Summer Palace is supposed to be a tranquil beautiful area to walk around. Bringing back the fact that it’s a national holiday this week, the Summer Palace was a big disappointment.
The only picture we could get without people in it
Nick and I estimated about half the population of Beijing (15.6 million by the way!) were in these gardens. At most points I wanted to just start pushing people out of my way, it was near impossible to move. My recommendation is to not go to the Summer Palace on a holiday, weekend, or anytime that isn’t the middle of the week in the dead of winter. From the pictures I’ve seen, though, I’m sure it would be quite beautiful if you have breathing room.
After that we decided to get to bed at a decent time in order to catch the first bus to The Great Wall so we would get there before the hoards of tourists. We also chose to go to the section of wall not as frequented. Badaling is where the largest amount of people go, so after our disastrous day at Summer Palace we picked the Mutianyu section, which was one of our best decisions so far.
Waking up at five, we grabbed a delicious breakfast of hot cakes and egg mcmuffins from McDonalds (thank you capitalism!) on the way to the subway. We took the subway to the Dongzhimen stop, then the 916 bus to Huairou, then after some vicious haggling, took a taxi to the foot of a panorama of green mountains. There is an option to take a cable car up to the Wall, and to take a toboggan ride down, or walk both ways. Since I didn’t want to be exhausted before we even started walking the Wall, I begged Nick to take the cable car up and walk down. We walked 80% of this section of the Wall, which is incredibly steep at times, and has steps of all different heights. This took us about 3 hours, and the whole time Nick kept assuring me it was much needed practice for Nepal.
The Mutianyu section of the wall is 3 km long, and is known for it’s many dynasty guard towers. There were very few peddlers, although we did notice a local kindly taking pictures for a couple, then aggressively demanding 100 Yuan for his ‘services.’ When we first arrived we had about a half hour of alone time on the wall, which was what we desperately hoped for. Hiking the steep slopes between the towers without hearing anyone except the birds was a peaceful experience. When we finally descended, the sleepy town we had arrived into had transformed into a street of stalls selling tacky tourist trinkets. Our number one (and two) piece advice is to take the local bus (a coach) which is a fraction of the price of a tour, and to leave on the first bus of the day.
The Wall really was amazing to see. It stretches on for such distance it blows your mind. Surely a day we won’t soon forget.
I check every day to see what the two of you are up to, So far I am very impressed by the pictures and your written info. Keep it
up because you guys are having the life experience most of us will never have. We are living it through you two!!!!