And finally 'The Great Wall'!

The Great Wall at MuTianYu

Determined to catch the 'Mubus service at 8 am in the morning, we were up bright and early.  We rushed through breakfast and raced towards the Mubus starting point, which was around a km away from our hotel. We reached the boarding point in front of Swissotel, Beijing with 10 minutes to spare. As we approached the buses, we met an English speaking guide who informed us that payment could only be made by cash. We were unprepared for this and my husband raced to get cash from an ATM which was around 50 meters away. As my daughter and I waited, few more tourists boarded the bus and the bus left promptly at 8:00 am without us.
I was nearly in tears when our guide assured us that another bus was due to leave at 8:30. Fortunately for us, the bus at 8:00 am had mostly Chinese speaking tourists and so the guide speaking in Chinese accompanied it. The bus at 8:30 had mostly Western tourists so the English speaking guide would be joining that bus. Talk of small mercies!

Some fun while waiting at the entrance for everyone's turn at the restrooms!

Our ride to MuTianYu was nearly 2 hours. Tony was the guide on our bus and the scenic drive was more enjoyable for his witty banter and informative tips. I would highly recommend him as a guide for the trip to the ‘Great Wall’. According to Tony’s instructions the bus would drop us off at the entrance to MuTianYu section of the Great Wall. It was a hike up to reach the Great Wall from the entrance. Alternatively, there was a cable car service which would also take tourists up to the wall. The MuTianYu section of the wall composed of 10 towers with the way between them. It started from tower 10 up to tower 20 which was the steepest climb in that section. It was around 10:30 am when we reached and we had 4 hours to explore the Great Wall and have lunch before our ride back to the city at 2:30 pm sharp. Tony warned us that it would be near impossible to hike to tower 20 and back in the given time. To more sensible people it should have sounded like a warning; for us it sounded like he was throwing us a gauntlet!

A snack before the climb

Husband and me made up our minds to take the stairs to the Great Wall and to hike to tower 20 and back . My poor daughter had no choice to follow her suddenly hyper-active and determined parents. As always our sense of urgency was in direct contrast to my daughter’s and she decided she was very hungry just then. So we spent the first 20 minutes of our visit to ‘The Great Wall’ queuing up for chicken wings at a KFC outlet tantalizingly situated just opposite to the entrance to the steps that lead to tower 10.We finally started after her snack.

Steps leading to tower10

Weird tradition of embedding coins in a tree!

The climb to tower 10 was surprisingly steep in itself and it took us around half an hour. The view on the top was breathtaking and I felt so emotional just reaching the Great Wall. The experience is one that  will cherish forever. To be surrounded by the majestic mountains, painted in the colours of autumn and to be standing on one of the most impressive piece of history made my human hands created a churning of emotions in me. An accomplishment which had the tears, sweat and blood of hundreds of thousands of Chinese. This wall had also a dark legacy of being China’s biggest graveyard, according to local guides, as many of the workers who were forced to build it by the emperor had succumbed to their hard life and were buried under it.  The enormity of the structure, history and natural beauty surrounding it just overwhelmed me.

View from entrance to Tower10

Stepping inside The Great Wall

The beautiful view from the wall

Tower 11 was a standalone tower, a small detour on the way to tower 20. The wall wasn’t very crowded and we joined the  tourists past tower 12 and 13. At tower 14, it became more crowded as those who had opted for cable car service to the Great Wall were dropped off there. The ‘Towers’ were more like watch towers where soldiers in ancient China used to keep a lookout towards invaders. They were confined spaces with narrow entrances led to by steep steps and were mostly bottlenecks in the flow of tourists on the wall. The paths between the steps were cut up into steps which were nice and wide at some points and very narrow at others. Some of the towers were empty and some elicited more interest making them very stuffy . There were safety personnel deployed on the wall to manage the flow of tourists between towers and to make sure no foolhardy tourist decided to do stunts in the hope of that viral selfie!

Trekking towards tower 20

Standalone Tower 11

One of a million snap-worthy moments!

In front of tower 13

A light stream of tourists on the wall

Inside one of the towers

The Great Wall is a marvel of construction on top of mountainous terrain and follows the ups and downs of the peaks. As warned by Tony, the climb from tower 19 to tower 20 was the steepest part of the section. The steps were very narrow and high, so much so, that we could see some tourists descending bum-first as we approached the climb. Although we doubted if my daughter could climb the steep steps, she surprised us with her agility! We reached tower 20 by around 12:40 pm after nearly an hour and 40 minutes of trekking. It was the most crowded tower and the safety ambassador there had to regulate the crowd most actively.  Entry to the next section of the Great Wall was restricted by a high wall and this was the end of the MuTianYu section. However, some people climbed over the restricting wall to jump into the section of Great Wall in the next province. We would have considered it were we not really short of time and exhausted. We spent around 10 minutes in tower 20 soaking in the view and the experience before heading back. We saw the crowd of tourists come in for the afternoon slot and were pleased with ourselves for choosing the morning slot. Descending was very hard on our knees and calves and we barely made it back to the boarding point with no time to spare for lunch.

Steps cut up

Hungry but exhilarated, we boarded the bus back to the city. ‘The Great Wall’ had been all that we had imagined and more! An absolute treat and cherry on the topping of our visit China! Our drive back to the city took longer thanks to the infamous Beijing traffic. We weren’t complaining though as the scenery that greeted us was lovely. We reached our destination around 6pm, famished but supremely happy!

Although it was late when we returned from the Summer palace, we were still feeling very adventurous and so we thought of treating our palates to spicy Sichuan cuisine. We chose a hot pot restuarant called 'Papa Frying' located close to our hotel. All the tables had a wide opening in the centre, below which was the stove. We ordered whatever the waitress recommended. It came in a huge wok partitioned in the middle. To one side was the extremely spicy soup with mala chillies in it and the other was a milder tomato based soup. We had ordered a full platter of all meats, thinly sliced and a basket of green leafy vegetables.  In a bowl was a mound of grated garlic and finely chopped coriander. There were also soy sauce, vinegar and other condiments placed on the table. Looking around I saw other patrons mixing the garlic, coriander, soy sauce and vinegar to form a kind of paste.  I started doing the same much to the amusement of father and daughter who were teasing me.
The mixture tasted nice, and I was vindicated when our waitress made the same paste for my husband and daughter. It was our first experience with hot pot and we managed to garner that we needed to dip the meats for 2-3 minutes in the boiling sauce for it to be cooked before consuming. Simple enough!

My first taste of biting into a Sichuan peppercorn or mala chilli as it is widely called is unforgettable!
It was spicy and horrible. I felt like I had bitten into Camphor. In fact I was sure I had bitten into something inedible by misake. Tears streamed out of my eyes and nose and steam out of my ears. My husband took one look at me and asked me to have the paste I had prepared. That really helped! The mixture I discoved was like an antidote to that Chilli. So much so, that I was emboldened to try the sauce again. Believe it or not, we all enjoyed the platter and our adventure at 'papa frying' a lot. It was an expensive and bold chance but we enjoyed choosing to have our dinner there.

This concluded our China trip and also was the last travel before the great pandemic stalled our travel for a good two years. It was a changed world when we travelled again both personally and otherwise.