Mao said “He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a true man!” I can now state, categorically, that, finally, at the grand old age I am turning next week, I am a true man.
Last night, before going to our Hope Dinner, I booked us onto a tour to see the Great Wall and The Ming Tombs. The hotel has a deal with a group who pick you up in the morning, drive you all over the place and then drop you back at the hotel at the end of a tiring day. Sounded like a good idea to us. And so, very early this morning (7:25am) we were sitting in the lobby, waiting to meet Christina, our tour guide.
She was a little bit late but I reckon that was because her driver parked the mini bus about three miles away. We set off up the street, dodging the insane Beijing traffic before, finally and thankfully, collapsing into our seats. We set off, picking up another three people on the way.
We were a group of nine, plus Christina (I’m not counting the driver as he never spoke to us or took part in anything other than driving and beeping his horn every four yards); us from Britain, a family of three Belgians, a French couple and an Italian couple. I thought it was quite jolly that we’d visited all of their countries. It was also quite jolly that Christina had spent her honeymoon in Australia. She looked about 12 but, Mirinda reckoned, she was actually in her late 20’s.
The trip out of Beijing took an age. Actually, that’s not true. Beijing is so big, we never left it. At least according to Christina. Still, eventually we arrived at a massive and beautifully empty carpark complete with ticket office. Our entrance was included in the tour price so, leaving Christina to collect the tickets, we all went to the loo. You seriously have to take every opportunity that presents itself in China.
We then drove up the hill to the base of a long set of steps that led up to a section of the wall at Badaling. According to Christina, this is a good part of the Wall because not many people visit it (as opposed to places like Jingshanling which, when we passed, was crawling with people) and, while we were there, this seemed perfectly true.
We almost had the place to ourselves. What struck us most of all was the delicious silence. Not a sound. There was no wind, no birds, nothing. It was marvellous. Just sitting on a section of the Wall, taking in the landscape in complete silence, was brilliant. The younger members of our group went traipsing off over the hill, while a few of us just sat and chatted for about an hour.
It was definitely a highlight of the trip but it had to end and we were soon on our way to the tomb of Ming Emperor Chang Ling or, as Christina called him, Judy.
What a guy. He was the man who decided that Beijing should be the capital of China. He also deposed his nephew to take over the emperor position. Having taken the role, he then started work on the Forbidden City (I guess he wasn’t keen on the pollution and toilets in the city either). At some stage, he then started building his own tomb. He worked on it for ten years and it’s like a little version of the Forbidden City.
Archaeologists have not dug Judy up (or his wife) so his entire tomb is intact, hidden somewhere in a hill. He had a giant hall built as well and that has been turned into an early Ming museum. Fascinating. Especially fascinating was the model of a junk which represents the treasure ship of Zheng He, the famous eunuch, general, voyager and all round hero type guy.
Oops. I forgot lunch. We had lunch in the world’s biggest jade shop. Unbelievable. And they were quite good with the hard sell…though not good enough to sell much to our little group. Though I did succumb to a couple of pairs of jade chopsticks and Mirinda went for a little egg with a bird painted on it.
Food was also included in the tour price and we were served a series of Chinese dishes with both vegetables and meat. Drinks were not included so we had to buy them. Sadly, Christina was not allowed to eat with us because, in her words, “It’s for the tourists.” I thought this was really mean but she was forbidden and went off to eat with the other tour guides. Stupid rule.
Speaking of Christina, we really liked her. She was a tiny little bundle of smiling good cheer. The only thing was, she had some strange ideas about things. Like her opinion of Mao. She reckons he was a great man. I didn’t ask her what she thought of the millions he had killed or the whole ridiculous Cultural Revolution thing and can only assume that she (and others of her age group) have been fed some pretty whitewashed history. But, back to Judy…
We were not allowed to walk through the giant, standalone archway in the middle of the courtyard because, apparently, that’s only for the dead emperor’s spirit as it travels to the ‘other world’. On our return from his memorial or Soul Stone we were instructed to go through the big standalone archway (men with their left leg first, woman with the right) saying, in Chinese, that we’d not look back. We all did very well except for the French chap who just had to look back. He didn’t turn to stone but I reckon he may be visiting the spirit world a little sooner than he may have planned.
We’ve noticed there is a little step in each doorway here. This is to stop the ghosts. Chinese ghosts appear to be very short and stupid if they can be stopped by a 4” step. Personally, I think the steps are permanent draft extruders and the ghost thing was a badly timed joke by the guy who invented them.
Having wandered the length and breadth of Judy’s tomb city, unbothered by tiny ghosts, we piled back into the mini-bus and headed back to the centre of Beijing. I’d have been more than happy to have called it a day at this stage but, no, we had to join the thousands (I’m not exaggerating) of other lunatics, going to look at the Olympic Park structures from a super wide walkway that emerges wraith-like from the pollution.
I assure you that that is NOT fog or clouds or anything pleasant
It was gross and, easily, one of the worst things I’ve ever seen or been a part of. I have no idea why anyone with a functioning lung would, voluntarily, spend an afternoon there. We were there for about half an hour and that was long enough to feel the effects on our tongues, noses and throats. It was like one of Dante’s nine circles of suffering. In the Divine Comedy, the ninth circle is treachery but I reckon this should be changed to Beijing’s Olympic Park.
We’d had such a lovely day that it was surprising that we needed to be brought back down to earth in this horrendous fashion. Erck!
Tomorrow I start my own adventures as Mirinda heads off to her first meeting.
