The Great Wall Experience

One of the main reasons tourists flock to Beijing is to visit the Great Wall of China. I am no different, as my first stop in China is also Beijing. Obviously the city is rich in history and culture, providing me many additional memories as well. I visited the Forbidden City, Tian’Anmen Square, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace; all of which were quite amazing. I also ate some interesting cuisine from the street market and night market, like whole little birds, sheep kidneys, squid and eel. But all of these are fairly common experiences for Beijing tourists. My Great Wall trip, however, was not.
I couple of fellow travelers had heard about a specialized Great Wall tour, that I decided to join in on. It allowed us to camp out over night in one of the towers of a desolate section of the Wall. While most people snap afternoon pictures of a restored section, with thousands of other people filling their photos, we took sunset and sunrise pictures with no one else around for miles. Plus, our guide/chaperone had no interest in being there with us (even though I think he was supposed to stay), so he left and we had complete run of the Wall to go and do whatever we wanted. It was undeniable that I must take advantage of this situation to do what any self-respecting climber would do….scale up the Great Wall of China…from the Mongolian side, of course.
The sunset, although not the most extravagant in colors, was brilliant to see over the rolling hills of stone covered peaks. Then we hung out in the tower for the rest of the night; drinking a few beers and some other traditional Chinese liquor, talking, listening to music, and even a little live guitar playing. The sunrise the next morning was slightly disappointing because of heavy fog, but it didn’t damper the experience. We still spent the morning hiking a closed section of the Wall that had been intertwined, and sometimes completely overgrown, by the surrounding nature.
The simplest was to say it is that this experience was absolutely Great.