The Wall

In terms of tourist destinations, the Great Wall was, by far, the highlight of our trip. After much deliberation, we decided to hike from Jingsanling to Simatai, spend the night in a hostel there, and then watch the sunrise over the Great Wall the next morning (that's what I did when I visited the Wall two years ago). The difference between this trip and the last though, was our decision not to book a tour, but to get there on local transportation instead.

That was fun.

Really. 

The adventure started upon arrival at the bus station in Beijing where several people approached us and insisted that the bus we wanted didn't exist. The signs weren't in English, though, so it was hard to verify that. We'd have been happier trusting them if they hadn't tried to split the two of us up, keep us away from the other backpackers we met, and stop us from asking the other locals. However, after wasting almost an hour, we finally took the bus they recommended along with another couple of backpackers. 

We arrived in Miyun, a town close to the Wall, an hour later only to find that another bus had supposedly vanished! Everyone gave us blank stares when we explained what we wanted and again all the signs were only in Chinese characters. We never found that bus either. Finally six of us (four other backpackers were also headed to the Wall) negotiated a price of 20 RB each with one of the minibuses and headed to the Wall. 

The ten kilometre hike itself was brilliant! The weather was actually warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! The trees around the Wall were just beginning to change colour and, most importantly, there were very few other tourists about. We decided to stay and watch the sunset on the Wall and then hiked down to our hostel. The next morning we woke up at five am, sneaked out of our hostel by jumping the gate and then headed back up to the Wall. The night was cold, but the stars were absolutely breathtaking! Funnily enough, even though we thought we were the only people around, we got to wall, turned a corner and almost gave another girl a heart attack! We hadn't thought to bring a flashlight so we were hiking in the dark and she didn't hear us coming. It was quite funny—and she even agreed with us after we peeled her off the ceiling of the watch tower. :)

The sunrise was well worth the cold weather and the early rising hour (hopefully the girl we met thought it was also worth having five years scared off her life). Once the sun was up we hiked to—and past—the end of the tourist section of the Wall. We toasted the day with our last ginger beer and then headed back down to play the transportation game once more.

This time things were going our way. Despite the assurances of the taxi driver that it didn't exist, we finally found the local bus! It cost only 4 RMB.