It was a pretty muggy day when we got to the wall. A lot of days are muggy in Beijing. Not great for photographs, but no matter. The Great Wall really is everything you want it to be. It is a mind boggling construction that just goes on and on. Very few adjectives really do it justice. 'Awesome' barely hints at the colossal scale of the thing.
Mutianyu is probably the most popular place to see the wall. It is an easy ride from Beijing, it is well provided with coach parks and restaurants, and it is absolutely heaving with visitors. This, by the way, should not come as a surprise. Most (almost all) the visitors are Chinese tourists visiting the wall themselves for the very first time. The wall is a marvel to them just as much as it is for us. Of course it is. So for the foreign visitor I have a very valuable tip. Don't take a coach trip to the wall. Don't take an organised tour from your hotel. Take a taxi. The reason for this became very clear to us after a while. The coaches and tours allow their parties an hour to explore the wall before they bundle everyone back onto the bus to take them off to a jade museum or a silk factory or whatever. So the vast crowds amble along the wall for half an hour, and then, reluctantly, they turn back. They don't want to miss their bus. But if you get there by cab, you have no such time cap. You can wander on. Suddenly you break free of the crowd. You climb a hill, and oh my god, you have the Great Wall of China to yourselves. Almost. We kept on going until our legs instructed us to turn around (and it can be very tiring in places). Honestly, you could stay there all day.
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