China Trip Part 12 The Great Wall

I don't know about any of you, but I have always been in awe of the Great Wall. We have all seen pictures of the Wall, but you cannot imagine what it is like unless you visit it. It is the only man made structure that can be seen from Space and it covers about 600 miles. There are many sections of the wall to visit but we chose the Mayang portion. The condition of the Wall varies along the length of it. In some places it has almost disappeared and in other it has been restored to it's original glory. Mayang is is a heavily forested area with large variations of mountain heights.

As you get to the wall there is the usual walk of shame through the many vendors hawking shirts, coffee cups etc. that say "I climbed the Great Wall". I don't know anybody that would buy something like that. Oops, I bought a T shirt. I did negotiate it down to 5 dollars with some postcards thrown in. I might add that the size I needed to fit me was 5X as the 6X was too big. Another learning moment, a 5x in China is a 2x in the US. You can do the math for smaller sizes.

You can either walk the trail to wall or take the lift. No question which way we went. The lift trip was awesome with views of the wall in both directions. The wall was built to follow the height of the mountains. When you walk along the wall you are either going up or down, hardly ever is there an level area. Some of the ups are steep ups and the same with the downs. We had fairly clear weather so we could see the wall through the wooded area for miles.

The wall was made completely by hand. No front end loaders, bulldozers etc. each stone carried, carved and stacked with a mortar made of rice paste and limestone. Many, many workers gave their lives for the wall. Life was not good and food and conditions were horrible. However, the Emperor had unlimited subjects to assign to this job and he made sure the work was done. You wonder where the Chinese work ethic came from I present this as Example A.

If you have a bucket list, the Great Wall should be on it. It is a true measurement of what can be done in spite of enormous challenges.