Day 188: The Great Wall Adventure

I had decided that I wanted to go visit the famous Great Wall before meeting up with my China group. The group was supposed to go to the wall as well, but there are a few different sections open to the public around Beijing, and I didn't know which the group was going to, or how busy it would be, so I wanted to do it ahead of time when I could pick where I went. While my reasoning was pretty sound, the implementation of my plan turned out... Interestingly. I signed up for a one-day tour to the wall I came across exploring the day before, and while somewhat unprofessional ad-hoc nature of it made me fear it was some scam, the price was cheap and there was no down payment so I decided there wasn't much to lose.

The group that I was with consisted of me, a couple from France, a Kenyan and a South African, all of whom were equally as nervous/skeptical as I was. We deduced early on that the reason the trip out was so inexpensive is because it's subsidized by bringing us to various artisans along the way who do some sort of demonstration and then try to sell us their work. None of us really minded this, as it would be interesting to see some of the different crafts and there was no obligation to buy anything. Our first stop was to a pottery shop where they used copper wire to create designs on pottery then used different inks and clays to fill in between the wire. The demonstration was fairly interesting, but none of us were too interested in actually buying anything.

We then got to go visit the wall, which was the reason we were all there. We were visiting the Mutianyu section, which is quite a bit further (and less crowded) then the Badaling section right outside of Beijing. We climbed the steps up to the wall, and spent maybe 90 minutes walking along the wall before coming back down for lunch.

Traffic was slow coming back, and with each stop things got a bit tenser in our van. Apparently the French couple had been promised the trip would also visit one of the Ming tombs in the area as part of them signing up, and this was apparently not communicated to our guide. He promised we'd go, but with each craft stop it got later and later and we weren't sure what was going to happen. The other stops included a silk factory, a tea ceremony and a tibetan health clinic (which included a free foot massage). Our final other stop was visiting the Olympic Stadium, and just as we were getting there the van "broke down". We were very skeptical, because the sounds the van was making sounded like it was just in the wrong gear, but after getting (and testing) our guides cell number we agreed to wait there for 40 minutes while he called for a new van.

None of us were terribly surprised when our guide failed to show up at the appointed time, and didn't answer any of the repeated phone calls over the next 30 minutes. The others were all planning taxis home, but since I was pretty familiar with the subway system by this point I convinced them it was much, much cheaper and walked them through the process. Nicole (the girl I was sharing a room with in the hotel) thought the story of me getting stranded by the tour, combined with my previous stories of people trying to scam me constantly pretty hilarious.