Second Day of Beijing - 27th July 2006

Postcard image of the Great Wall of China



Today we went to THE GREAT WALL. The weather surprised us. It was humid but cold. Unfortunately visibility on the wall was minimal because of the thick fog. We could only see 100 metres ahead.



Richard did a bit of investigating and managed to arrange the trip to the wall for one forth of the price we would have paid if we had arranged it through the hotel. We gave the Ming Tombs along with the Jade factories (you buy, you buy, very cheap) a miss.

For anybody interested there is a new bus service run by the Chinese Government that takes you straight to the wall at Badaling. The bus service is called ?????(will update this). Pick up is from the south east corner of Tian anmen Square. It costs about 90 rmb or $15 aud. It includes return bus service and entry to The Great Wall.

There were about a dozen very cute bears that I threw food to just before the entry to the great wall. The bears appear to enjoy the attention and the food. It did not appear that they were tortured or being treated inhumane. We were feeding them cucumber. Im sure they would have loved some meat.



We took a "pulley" or cable car up to the wall but found it would have been quite easy to walk. The cable car took us up the north side of the wall. We later walked up the south side. There are far too many peddlars (fawkers) on the bridge selling tourist crap. The fog and the crowds of tourists made it hard to take good photos :-(

The further away from the entrance to the wall the less crowds ;-)

Richard was impressed by my physical capabilities in climbing the wall as he had his doubts.

The only negative aspect about the trip to the great wall was trying to find the bus to take us back to Beijing. Tempers were tested. Signs were misleading, the language barrier was great and even when they could understand what we were saying they could not help us. All I can say is that they better know their product before the 2008 Olympics!!!!

Finally we found a gentleman with a van who offered to take us to the car park where the bus was located for a small fee of 20 rmb. He was able to understand what we were asking after we showed him a photo of the bus from the brochure.