Summer Break in China - Day 5

 

June 17, 2024

This morning, we packed up and had our simple breakfast at the hotel again, then started our journey towards the Great Wall of China. There are quite a few sections of the Great Wall one can visit, although not all sections are open to public. The Great Wall dates back to the 7th Century BC, but the best known sections of the wall were built between 1368 to 1644. Some of the sections are not close to one another, and most of them would take a day trip from Beijing to visit. Each section has its own claim to fame, so-to-speak. If you plan to visit the Great Wall, you should do your research and consider all of the factors. The Great Wall is a very popular destination, so it may make sense to go to one of the lesser known sections. 

Sections of Great Wall

1. Huanghuacheng Great Wall (Lakeside Great Wall)

This section of the wall is very scenic but not too crowded. This is the only section of the wall where some of it is under water. If I go back, I think I would like to visit this section. There are some peaks here with beautiful views.

2. Jinshanling Great Wall (Gold Mountain Great Wall)

This section is very uncrowded as well. Many people think this is the most beautiful section of the Great Wall because it is only half restored, with many parts looking quite deteriorated and almost like it's part of nature. This is photographer's favorite section of the wall. It's also connected to another section of the wall - Simatai Great Wall (Museum of the Great Wall). The hiking trail connects the two sections, including a suspension bridge. 

3. Simatai Great Wall (Museum of the Great Wall)

Simatai is one of the important sections of the Great Wall. It's next to the popular tourist destination, Gubei Water Town. This is a great destination to spend a day as you can tour the Water Town by day, and tour the Great Wall at night. The night time Simatai is all lit up and very pretty. There is also beautiful fall foliage if you visit during the fall. This is the section of the Great Wall we visited in 2018. I also visited it with my kids in 2016. 

4. Gubeikou Great Wall (Old North Gate Great Wall)

This area of the Great Wall is open to public but very little restoration has been done. Much of the wall is deteriorated and there's no railing, kind of reminds me of the haiku stairs in Hawaii. You can often find yourself alone on this section of the wall.

5. Junyongguan Great Wall (Housing Commoners Pass Great Wall)

This section is the closest option to Beijing (still takes 1.5 hours though) and it's handicap friendly. Genghis Khan once led his troops through Junyong Pass. David Cameron, British Prime Minister visited this section of the wall in 2010.

6. Mutianyu Great Wall (Admire Fields Valley Great Wall)

Mutianyu is the MOST popular section for international travelers, and the most popular section for people with children. Mutianyu's popularity comes from the fact it's the longest and most fully restored section of the Great Wall. I visited Mutianyu in 1987. Mutianyu is popular with children because it has chair lifts, cable cars, and toboggans, meaning you don't have to climb to the top if you don't want to. They didn't have those options in 1987 though! This is the section of the Great Wall that Bill Clinton visited. Michelle Obama also visited with her two kids in 2014. However, Barack Obama visited Badaling section of the wall in 2009. 

7. Jiankou Great Wall (Arrow Nock Great Wall)

This section of the Great Wall is 100% wild, so it is the most dangerous section of the Great Wall, as well as the most challenging. It's for serious hikers only. 

8. Huangyaguang Great Wall (Yellow Cliff Pass Great Wall)

This section of the Great Wall is famous due to its annual marathon. It's a great section for some exercise and if you are staying in Tianjin instead of Beijing, this could be the section that's the closest to you. 

9. Shanhaiguan Great Wall (Mountain Sea Pass Great Wall)

This section of the wall goes to the Pacific ocean. This is the most historically significant part of the Great Wall because it protected China's widest corridor from its neighbor, the Manchu. 

10. Badaling Great Wall (Eight Reach Ridge Great Wall)

I guess you could say I've saved the best for last, although after my two trips to Badaling, I could hardly say it's the best. Badaling is BY FAR the most crowded section of the Great Wall. I mean, it's INSANELY crowded. Badaling is also very popular with VIP guests. Majority of celebrities visit Badaling. Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, Al Gore, George W. Bush, Putin, Queen Elizabeth II, Barack Obama, Stephen Harper, Gerald Ford, the list goes on and on. Badaling is most popular because it's considered to be the most "representative" of the Great Wall, kind of like Magic Kingdom for Disney parks I guess. 

There are other sections of the wall as well, such as the Shuiguan (Water Gate) Great Wall, or Xiangshuihu Great Wall. I won't list them all here. If you ask a local for a recommendation, they are most likely to recommend Badaling (BDL), but if you ask me, after my 2 trips to Badaling (BDL), 2 trips to Simatai (SMT), and 1 trip to Mutianyu (MTY), I would say stay far far away from BDL unless you just love crowds. If you have a full (12 hour) day dedicated to this, I say you should do Gubei Water Village, SMT, and take the bridge to Jinshanling (JSL). The reason you have to add JSL to this is because SMT just isn't representative of the Great Wall that much. SMT area is so touristy with a TON of lights that it almost takes its historical and cultural significance away. (Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely beautiful, but a totally different look due to all the modern manmade features.) If you only have 6-8 hours, I'd say just do MTY. 

My children don't remember their trip to SMT when they were 3 and 5, which is why we decided to visit Great Wall on this trip. We made the huge mistake of choosing to go to BDL because you know, that's where all the important people go. I know it's crowded year round. But I didn't know it was going to be THIS crowded. So apparently we went on the first week after Gaokao, the college entrance exam in China, which means all of the high school kids were done with school and ready for a vacation. Never make this mistake, trust me.

On our way to BDL, we saw Junyong Pass Great Wall (JYG). At the time, I was even tempted to say, hey let's just go here instead. But I didn't. 

Junyong Pass Great Wall

This whole drive was very scenic. We finally made it to BDL and got in line to purchase the tickets for the cable car. The line to purchase the cable car was insanely long and much of it was exposed to the elements. We really should have just turned around at that point. I mean, the line was like the longest line at a Disney park. The line was so long that there were several pop up shops to buy snacks!! Oh, also, if you want to visit the Great Wall (or any attraction in China really), make sure you have your passport with you. Like, the real thing. They won't let you buy tickets otherwise.

After riding the cable car, there's not a whole lot more to hike. If you don't want to ride the cable car, you could just hike the whole thing. Which I really don't advise due to the crowd. It was very difficult to take a picture because the wall is pretty steep here, and with the crowd, it's hard to find any part of the wall to hold on to.

Badaling Great Wall

Good Man Slope

The top of BDL is called Good Man Slope. The cable car takes you pretty close to it, but you have to climb to the last clocktower yourself. It really isn't far, but given how steep it is, and how hot it was when we were there, it's not easy to do. The phrase, Good Man Slope come from Chair Mao who famously said, "Not climb the wall, not good man". This is one of three Good Man Slope's among all the Great Wall sections. All of them are located at the highest points of the individual sections. 

Closed section of BDL due to safety

Climbing the wall (I was dying and barely made it. I didn't realize Ava was so relaxed!)

When we were there, the toboggan (downhill slide) wasn't running, so we took the cable car back down.

Riding the cable car

The scenery at BDL is incredible but man I was glad to be out of there. It was about 2:30pm when we left the parking lot, and I will say that the line for the cable car to go up the mountain was not long at that point. So maybe if you do go on a super crowded day, try to go later in the day? I don't know how late you can go so maybe check before you go. 

Our hotel tonight is at the nearby, Guhuaishu Hotel (Old Pagoda Tree Hotel). We have a whole courtyard with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms to ourselves. The owner lives nearby. The hotel is located inside Chadao Ancient Village. This was an ancient city from the Ming Dynasty that's been restored but still retains many of its original walls and garrisons. This area is a great choice to stay the night if you visit BDL and want to spend more than one day in this area. Chadao Ancient Village is historically accurate, thus does not allow cars to enter, so if you have a lot of luggage, it can be challenging (or nearly impossible) to roll them on the cobblestone streets. Most hotels in here are courtyard style with owners living nearby and will lend you a helping hand if you call them at the entrance to the village. Most of them also have tricycles to carry your luggage for you. Just know that this is a small village where English skills are almost nonexistent. 

private courtyard of our hotel room at Guhuaishu Hotel

Our private courtyard at our hotel (behind the tree is our private bounce house)

Our private entrance with Duilian

Duilian is a style of Chinese poetry that was popular in the Ming Dynasty (the time period this village came from). Dui means "paired", Lian means "scroll". You read a Duilian vertically, from right to left. Some Duilians come with a horizontal scroll in the middle on top, which is to be read after you read the vertical scrolls. This Duilian can be loosely translated as - Work Hard, Play Hard. Rarely Confused.

Kids bedroom (Sea World Themed)

The other side of the kids bedroom

Master bedroom (with a huge living room)

By now, we are on day 3 without coffee, so Teddy and I walked around in search of coffeeshops. We found this one.

But we couldn't even find anyone working there. It was just empty. In the end, we did manage to find a coffeeshop in the village but it was pretty weird. The employee was napping when we went in. It doesn't look like he had a customer all day. There was a pretty cool ball pit but I wasn't sure if it was open to customers. And there was a cat with its own cat house...

Finally, coffee

With how popular coffee drinks are in China, it was pretty incredible how unpopular it was in this village. 

Cat cabinet (can you see the cat?)

After coffee, we continued walking around the village. There are many signs around the village, telling us the history of the area. None of these signs have any English though.

Chadao site of thousands of Chinese burned alive

This is the site of Chadao Burial, where thousands of Chinese were burned alive by the Japanese in 1943. Japanese army snatched almost 6000 Chinese from the surrounding areas to build a secret gully to connect from Chadao to Yongning. Suffering from squalid living conditions, starvation, dehydration, and 17 hour workdays, many of the laborers contracted dysentery. The Japanese army tossed the sick Chinese men over the city wall into a giant ditch built for burning them alive. In the end, only roughly 2000 Chinese made it out alive. You will not find this in your history books.

Some hotel w/geodesic dome and pink panther

Pink Panther is holding a sign that says "Life is simple. Good thing I like it." There were temples here too.

There were lots of little markets in the village. We were able to find some instant coffee to buy for tomorrow morning and also some ice cream bars. We saw these ice cream bars at Great Wall earlier today for a lot more money.

The ice cream turned out to be a lot smaller than the box suggested.

So small. I haven't even had a bite.

Time for dinner. There are lots of restaurants in this village, which is good since our car is quite far away as the village is foot traffic only. We chose this restaurant. The name means Lucky Pagoda.

Yuehuai Restaurant (Lucky Pagoda)

The restaurant displays a set of Duilian as well. This can be loosely translated as: Travelers crisscross north and south displays of love; Diners here or there east west searches of aroma. The horizontal scroll says: Come to Lucky Pagoda. Food here was pretty good!

Lucky Pagoda Restaurant

After dinner, we walked around the village again, enjoying some sunset views.

One of the entrance gates of Chadao

This is the entrance gate to Chadao. There is another gate on the other end. Beyond the gate, the lettering says "Chadao Ancient Village Welcomes You". You can climb on top of the gate and watch the sunset.

On top of the gate w/a nice view of Chadao Village

Out of curiosity, we stopped by the geodesic hotel again. I got the name this time. It's called Jinake Hotel. But there's no listing online in English currently. Even on Chinese websites, it's rather hard to find. I found it on here.

One of the geodesic rooms at Jinake Hotel

Our day ended here. Tomorrow we will be riding the train to Tianjin and spend our next 4 days there. This trip has been nothing short of amazing.