CRAZY LADY DAY!

I woke up today at 6am, I guess I didn’t adjust as well as I thought to the time change! We all got ready and went to breakfast at the school cafeteria. The food was a bit bland, but seemed to be a typical Chinese breakfast. It included boiled eggs, porridge, warm soy milk, and dumplings, which turned out to be my favorite.

We met up with our driver, Mr. Yeh, outside the campus. He seemed nice, but spoke no English! He drove a maroon mini-van, in which we crammed 6 of us tall people! We included Peter, Kevin, Sunia, Clark, Nakia and me. The driver drove like a madman, passing cars on mountain curves, in bike lanes, and running red lights. He honked constantly and there were no shocks in the van, which made it difficult to do anything but pay attention!

We drove for 1 ½ hours, first through Beijing, then suburbia, and then into the mountains. We arrived at a little inn and restaurant and began our hike. We started up a pretty easy footpath where we got our first glimpse of the great wall. It truly was an impressive sight. Just before we left, the great wall was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, although none of us could name more than 1-2 of the old Seven Wonders of the World.

We had been warned about a ‘crazy lady’ who asks for more money when you’ve already paid a ticket fee at a wire gate with lots of big scary dogs around.

The crazy lady did indeed appear just before we reached the wall. Peter sacrificed himself and engaged her in conversation while we RAN for about 10 minutes straight up the wild part of the wall, through the brush, rocks, and mountainous terrain. The lady had weapons like sticks to hit us with – thank you Peter for saving us! He reportedly threw one of these weapons off the wall so she couldn’t use it.

Peter caught up with us at a guard tower where we had stopped to rest, but the crazy lady appeared shortly after. She was huffing and puffing, as were we.

As I started to move further up the wall, she grabbed me to stop me. Peter pushed her against a wall so we could all get by and then we ran some more. Peter got quite physical with her, so not like him! He finally gave in just a tad and gave her 5 yuan, asking her not to bother us on our way down.

We continued to climb up the old, crumbling wall. The scenery was fantastic, and every time we reached a peak, there was another mountaintop with the wall just behind it.

The climb was slow and we had to rest often. We broke for a snack in a guard tower. We got some great pictures and scratches from the bushes!

I can’t even fathom how this wall was built. Peter brought up that the wall wasn’t even effective because the Mongolians still invaded China!

Coming down was much harder than going up. Our feet slipped constantly on the loose gravel, and everyone fell at least once. We used parts of the wall to hang on to, and stepped carefully, but still had some scrapes and scares by the time we reached the bottom.

We spotted the crazy old lady again, sort of squatting on the wall, and it appeared, waiting for us. Luckily, she decided to climb up the restored section of the wall in order to hassle some other climbers, and we were able to make a clean get away.

The journey was finally completed and we felt great, it was a true accomplishment. We talked about the dangers, in that there was no safety net – if we fell, we fell. This led to a discussion about insurance and legal differences between China and the US. Clearly the liability here was on the individual, but what an amazing experience! In the US we would have had to sign a waiver and there would have been ropes and walls to stop us.

Upon return to the hotel/restaurant we shared another good meal, while observing the wall in the distance. The restaurant also had a karaoke room with a bunch of drunk Chinese men who had gotten off of a bus.

We climbed back into the van and went about a mile to a restored section of the wall. Getting out of the van was an experience. We were accosted by ladies wanting us to buy postcards and souvenirs. There is no sense of physical boundaries here, they get right up in your face and space. Here, we paid to climb a homemade ladder onto the wall. It was located right on a dam. We wished it were a clearer day in order to be able to see further, but the heat may have conquered us then.

We had another crazy van ride back to Beijing, where we went straight to a nice Tibetan restaurant. We all felt sweaty and dirty, but Peter insisted that all we needed to do was wash up in the bathroom, because we are true backpackers!!

The food was Tibetan and a bit heavier, with mashed potatos, and more meat dishes. We tried Yak, which tasted like roast beef. Throughout dinner there were performances on stage which included singing and dancing, and at the end we all participated in a circle dance.

We were very sleepy at this dinner, and fell asleep soon after taking a cab back to Peter’s.