Surmounting China’s Great Wall

“Did you say we had to use the cable car to get to the top of the Great Wall? Or did you mean we had to walk each step of the way up to the top?” These were the questions a tourist posed to her tour agent over the phone after the first few flights […]

“Did you say we had to use the cable car to get to the top of the Great Wall? Or did you mean we had to walk each step of the way up to the top?” These were the questions a tourist posed to her tour agent over the phone after the first few flights up the steep steps of China’s Great Wall.
Visibly disappointed she hung up and turned to her husband saying: “Honey we’ve got a long way ahead, let’s keep going. I came here for this and I’m gonna [sic] go as far as I can,” she said almost out of breath.
Seemingly ridiculous as the question was, it was the same one several other tourists desired a ‘yes’ for, even though they knew none was coming.
As a caution sign upon mounting the first ten or so steps warned that persons with brain or heart disease shouldn’t do the climb and all others should do it according to their capabilities, everyone who had high hopes of reaching the top of this portion of the 21 thousand kilometre long wall, immediately fell in line in accordance with the warning.
There are several accesses to the Great Wall with the most popular being Ba Da Ling. To use this route, we had to be out of the hotel by 8 a.m. at the latest. But with forces of our African timing in collaboration with heavy traffic, the trip didn’t begin until 8.30. It was too late to make it to the main entry port. Our tour guide, Mitchell Shuo, therefore decided to take us through another not so busy route, the Ju Yong Guan Pass.
‘Magnificent’ was the only attribute to qualify the view by, as the bus rode up the winding hilly road to the parking lot to allow tourists disembark, buy tickets and begin the foot and direct interface with each piece of rock alternately set several thousand years ago to form this great wall.
It had all the attributes of a famous destination, full of shops selling memorabilia with the look of a Euro Disney except that in the place of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were towers, temples, concrete slabs and sculptures with Chinese inscriptions chronicling the history of the Wall and the access route.
The different accents English language was spoken with, the several languages I heard on the way up were a revelation of how much of the world was represented daily at the Great Wall in the several thousand tourists who visit it.
An elderly American-sounding man Ian James, who was travelling through Kazakhstan and Russia to China noticed the frown on our reporter’s face as she said to another colleague, ‘girls are not smiling.’ Following a hearty laugh he said to her: “One step at a time. Rest as often as you need to but more importantly, enjoy the views each rest affords you. That’s the best part to this expedition.”
The advise couldn’t be any more true as our reporter who had been climbing crouched forward as she pulled her weight up with the aid of the rails, stood up right and looked around her.
The reaction, best witnessed than narrated.
For anyone with a love for nature and landscapes, the mountain tops competing for ample and strategic spots in the clouds, the fact that you are standing at a height almost equal to theirs gives some sense of accomplishment and triumph that it provokes a somewhat arrogant smile of contentment.
Then the eyes begin to appreciate the other connecting mazes of the Wall leading to other entrances and mountain tops. One cannot but wonder the terror that would have alarmed those ancient dwellers so much to embark on such laudable project. Looking at the depth beneath, one wonders what kind of dangers they were exposed to and how many lives were lost in the process.
Several wood pieces, bricks, stones, tampered clay and other materials, combined, were built along an east-to-west line across China’s northern borders to protect the Chinese empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups-Dan Dong in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.
The constructions began in the 7th century BC in segments before they were later linked up and made bigger and stronger to bring about what is now known as the Great Wall. 
Our tour guide, Chen Ding explained that the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang built the most famous part of the from 220-206 BC, although very little of this original piece is left. Most of what exists today comes from the Ming Dynasty.
The Wall also served as a border control, which allowed for duties to be imposed on goods transported along the Silk Road, while encouraging and regulating trade and for controlling immigration and emigration.
It was enhanced with the construction of watchtowers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signalling capabilities by the use of smoke or fire, with some parts the Wall serving as transportation corridor.
Tour materials informed that the Ming wall consists 6,259 km (3,889 mi) sections of actual wall, 359 km (223 mi) of trenches and 2,232 km (1,387 mi) and measures 8,850 km (5,500 mi of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.
Another impression a first-timer has is that the wall is a huge snake running in several directions atop ridges. This ‘snake’ is arguably the only structure built by man that can be seen from the outer space.
The Pass has been renamed over the various Chinese dynasties but ‘Ju Yong Guan’ was used by more than three dynasties. The first time it was used was in the Qin Dynasty when Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the Great Wall to be built. The Pass was connected to the Great Wall in the southern and Northern Dynasties era.
Its present route was built in the Ming Dynasty and has been renovated over the years.
Both sides of the Wall here are fortified with crenellated parapets, so that shots could be fired at the enemy on both sides.
As tourists aim for the best shots at the most strategic spots, they are almost outnumbered by the Chinese who throng to the site.
I gave the Wall one last nostalgic look as I wondered what it must have looked like those may years ago.
China’s Great Wall has been on the news in recent times. Bits and pieces of the historic monument are being broken and stolen because it is believed that they contain precious items. There have been calls for more to be done to preserve it from being vandalised.
As in the words of Mao Ze Dong, ‘He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a true man; and he who does not love the Great Wall is not a hero,’ it won’t be out of place to say I have earned my bragging rights of heroism.