The Wall 30.04.2018


Image for The Wall

There is a big part of the wall in about 70km from Beijing. Normally you can get there by train, unfortunately I wasn't lucky: the railroad was closed for reconstruction till 2020. So I had no other choice but bus.
However already on a bus station there is a huge (A HUGE) queue. I already expected to spend there at least 3 hours (in case I'm lucky enough).

Photo 1611
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1611
(cc) by Rushan

The queue took just 20 (!) minutes. Chinese organized the people traffic really well. Parallel boarding to 6 buses at the same time. Infinite number of buses. Once the bus departed immediately there is another one ready for boarding.

Photo 1612
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1612
(cc) by Rushan

1.5 hours and I reached the wall. Worth to note that drivers in China are very awful: nobody gives a way to another driver, they also drive like there are no pedestrians at all (even if there are some).

Photo 1613
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1613
(cc) by Rushan

Even from this distance it was clear, that there are a lot of people.

Photo 1614
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1614
(cc) by Rushan

People simply walk on the wall, however on parts with steep rise peoples speed goes down and it turns into a huge jam. Like this one.

Photo 1615
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1615
(cc) by Rushan

There was just a few foreign tourists. Mostly Chinese. Even in such huge crowd.

Photo 1616
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1616
(cc) by Rushan

The Great Wall of China means a lot for modern Chinese, that's why it was so crowdy there. Mao told them: "You're no Chinese if you haven't visited on The Great Wall of China".

Photo 1617
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1617
(cc) by Rushan

The way back was a bit more time consuming. It took around 40 minutes in a queue and 4 hours for the same road. The traffic was heavy and sometimes we simply stayed on the same place for quite a while.

Photo 1618
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1618
(cc) by Rushan

Even in queues Chinese enjoy some street food. I had a feeling that they simply can't survive without eating every minute.
I saw a lot of waste on the street like on the photo. Especially next to food places. Fortunately they clean it up fast enough to avoid a huge street scrapyard. Otherwise it will be much closer to India.

Photo 1619
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1619
(cc) by Rushan

PS. A couple of photos from evening Beijing.

Photo 1620
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1620
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1621
(cc) by Rushan
Photo 1621
(cc) by Rushan

 
 
 
 

Points of interest and source links