Regrouping day

*originally posted 20 October 2007

Today’s the regrouping day. Partly because of the hell we went through yesterday, partly because of the crap we’ve already had today. We were supposed to be on a train to Datong at this time, where lusciously lush hanging gardens await, but we’re here in Beijing for another day, after all. That’s okay–I like Beijing. In fact, we’ve loved Beijing.

But I digress–going back to yesterday, our self-appointed Great Wall Day. We had originally planned to go to the Great Wall on the 18th, just a day after having arrived in China from the states. But on hearing Steve’s plans (Steve planned 99% of our China itinerary, & I got the other countries) I convinced him otherwise–we’d be too jet-lagged and exhausted to appreciate the GW (embrace the abbreviations baby), etc. etc. So we added another day in.

Now there’s several different areas of the GW one can visit–hell, you could hike end to end if you had a mind to it, I believe, although parts are decaying and makes for rough passage. At some point many moons ago I had read somewhere that the Badaling section was most tourist-y. I’m picturing the Disney version of the GW–people selling crappy souvenirs, photo opps where they put you in front of a fake GW to take a picture before you’re allowed entrance to the real thing (they did this at the Empire State Bldg in NYC and it was damn ridiculous. who the hell buys this??). Then I read about a 6-mile hike from the Jinshanling section to one called Simatai. Both waaaaaay less tourist-trappy, more secluded, more Great Wall vibe. Just the two of us & that powerful white stone stretching through the mountains for miles and miles. And much further away from central Beijing. The typical day tours you can book through your hotel don’t take you here. And I, no, we’re–no, let’s face it, this was my idea, my mess–am thinking this is a good thing.

So, you following? Easy, uncomplicated way to Great Wall out. Complicated, rife-with-possibilities-to-F-up way in. Now we’re talking multiple bus transfers, multiple attempts to get on the right bus at the right time with our sh!tty Mandarin/Cantonese language fumbling and our guidebooks that more and more we’re thinking were written by a 5 year old.

Get on the right bus out of Beijing. Check. Only minor difficulty. Now we just have to stay on this bus 1.25 hours until we get to the Miyun bus station, where we’ll transfer to another bus. It’s looking good. We’re settled in our seats, I’m devouring a yummy book (Eat Pray Love….wonderful for Italy fans *Marmee & Lamb*), Steve’s got the ipod going, we’re resting. Excited. We get into Miyun town, and suddenly at a random stop (NOT the bus station) an official jumps on, tells us this is where we get off to go to Jinshanling. Startled, we just follow. What happens next is almost comical. The “official” tells us there’s no other bus to Jinshanling, we have to take a taxi, which, oh look! This kind gentleman right here happens to be a taxi driver and he’ll take us to the GW for the generous price of you’re-tourists-so-you-must-be-filthy-rich yen. Damnit ass bloody hole. We were duped. Now what? No Fing way are we getting in the cab with that jerk of a cab driver in on the scam. And furthermore, he’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer. He’s following us like a yapping lap dog, getting angry, flicking Steve’s head. Now we’re looking for a police officer, trying to get directions to the bus station on foot, while more and more of these fake cabbies are trailing us, drumming up business.

“But the bus station is 10 kilometers away.”

So we’ll walk until we see a real taxi, then have them take us the rest of the way. Anything to get away from these fake touts who screwed us in the first place. Pride is a really damaging thing, and yesterday it got the best of us, I’m afraid. We set off on foot, through a lovely park with the lovely Chinese diligently exercising in the cutest ways (treadmills made of rolling metal pipes, anyone?), and we walk. And walk. And walk. And fight a little. And walk some more. And fight a lot. We’re absolutely furious now, we’ve lost so much time, there are no bloody cabs in sight on what must be the most miserable street in Miyun, which feels like the most wretched town in all of China. And it’s a busy street at that! Not for lack of trying, because this looked like the main commercial drag of the town.

Fast forward nearly 1 1/2 hours later. We find a cabbie, who drives us another hour to the section of the GW (at an exorbitant price) which we wanted to end up at after our hike, not set out from–Simatai. Why didn’t we just get our asses out of the damn car and hike anyway? Weeeellll, Jinshanling is supposedly so remote that it would be nearly impossible to find a cab back to Beijing upon completing the hike. We’d have a much better chance doing so from Simatai. I know, it’s screwy and complicated so I’ll start wrapping up this overly-dramatic story because I’m getting hungry anyhow. In a nutshell: new cabbie–new exorbitant price–drives us to Jinshanling–horrendous traffic jam–normally 20-minute route takes over 1 1/2 hours–arrive at Jinshanling. But the bottom line was we got there!

And it was wonderful. No, beyond wonderful. The Great Wall was splendid, larger than life, as far as our tired eyes could see, slicing through the mountains like a knife, and we got our bloody seclusion with barely anyone around us besides the howling wind. And the hike–kinda hard! STEEP, with lots of 2-feet-tall steps (at least from my biased recollection as a shorty), lots of up-down-up-down-stumble-up-down-now take a picture-…and lest we forget, remember how many people–hard, hard-working laborers- died to make this wall possible. How it took hundreds of years to complete. The grief we went through to get there isn’t even worth mentioning anymore. Really, we’ve been so petty and need to start appreciating this magnificence. Fight utterly and completely forgotten. But the hike- absolutely worth it. One of the Greatest Ever. Didn’t need the stinkin’ Disney version of Badaling after all.