On our 31st day in China, we went to see the Great Wall, or more accurately, the ruins of one of several discontinuous sections. Based on our guide book and a friendly Quebecois women from our hostel, we decided on seeing a section called Simatai. However, we realized on our way there we had actually signed up for a hike from a wall section called Jinshanling to the Simatai section. Since long hikes dissuade the tourist hoards it was a serendipitiously good move. However, I look forward to forgetting the bus ride.

Boarding the bus at 7:30 was a stark contrast from the last eight weeks and, at four hours one way (to go 110km!), it was intensely boring. The people on the bus were almost entirely NALPs (our code for "non-Asian looking people") who were neatly gridded off by couple sets. For the bus ride there, the atmosphere was quiet. Neighboring couples whispered to each other and essentially had polite barriers. Absent were the Chinese who smoke, spit, drop trash, and suffer from the sad affliction of cell-yell. (In Chinese, the phone is answered with the syllable, "waay," which more often than not, is blurred into the cry, "wannn," like an unhappy baby.)

Jinshanling was where the bus dropped us before shuttling itself to Simatai, while we hiked about 10km on top of the wall to meet the bus at Simatai. At regular intervals, the wall became a tower with multiple rooms and floors, some elaborately crenelated. The views were impressive, especially the wall in the distance as it snakes over the hills and beyond view, but more than once, I wished I could just be hiking in the hills and the wall became more of an obstruction to an otherwise nice hike. In places, the wall is a crumble of stones that requires feet and hands to scramble up. At several towers, the ruin was near complete and single-track paths around the towers were available. There were touts along the entire wall, several who hiked at least half the wall in hopes of a sale and I joked to Leah that all of the stone gaps in the wall could have been filled in with them.

Water, beer (I can't think of a heavier or more dehydrating "refreshment" during exercise!), books, fans and T-shirts were for sale on the wall. The touts tried to follow, befriend or give unnecessary advice, on the assumption that if you don't want to buy something, you might later. Leah was able to puzzle them briefly by speaking in Arabic. Eventually, toward the end, they gave up on us and we even had a few minutes with the wall to ourselves.

Near the finish, an "inertia ropeway" was an alternative to hiking the way down. So, we took it. Leah and I each stepped into climbing harness, which were then clipped together, and we both stepped off the mountain together. The steel cable stretches across the river at 30 degrees or so, and we reached the bottom in less than a minute. It was fun, but I was surprised that the "brake" was a man standing at the bottom to clamp a piece of metal to the cable, where the cable's wheel is anchored. It's better I didn't see that before we went. Finally, a small boat ferried ropeway passengers to the waiting bus.

Four hours on the bus... (if I don't write anything here, I may forget this part sooner.)

-David

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