Our Great Wall ADVENTURE: May 31st

Our second trip to the great wall was the craziest and by far, the best day of the trip. We knew that we wanted to go to the Great Wall again because our first trip was not satisfactory. Because we had to plan this trip ourselves, and because planning a trip is hard when you don’t speech the language, we decided to wing-it. We woke up that morning with the plans to go to one area but discovered, via Internet, that it had been closed for the year for renovations. We found a new place on a tourist website. The site said it was 2 hours away: just take Bus #9 to last stop and then take a mini bus to the Great Wall. We figured this was enough and headed off.

When we got to Bus 9 we met a Chinese man that told us to get on this bus to make it to the Great Wall, so we felt assured. Then the man told us to get off at a stop that definitely was not the directions we knew, but we went ahead. The man apparently was a mini bus driver. At this point, we were totally screwed because we knew he could charge us whatever he wanted because we had to go with him or be stuck in a small Chinese town, and there was no guarantee that he would take us to the right place. After much chinglish, we came to find that he was a very honest man and could take us where we wanted to go for a very reasonable price. We totally lucked out.

After our one-hour mini bus (technically a mini van) drive, we came to the wall that had a huge sign “NO TRESPASSING”. After walking by this sign, there was a man sitting in a chair with a sign that read “3 RBM”. After giving him our $1.50 we took a trail to the wall. To get on to the wall, we had to climb up a very questionable latter. Our mini bus guide came with us and he knew what to do, so we trusted him.

The walk up and down the wall was amazing. Most parts were so steep you had to be on all fours and climb. It was not easy but it was absolutely breath taking.

Our mini-bus guide guided us the whole way and all the way home. He was amazing, and of course we gave him a generous tip. We were SO lucky to find such an amazing guide, and I will never forget that day.