China was full of surprises and challenged my expectations.An example of this was The Great Wall of China. It was a place I knew I was going to visit, an icon of China.
Most of the tourist access points to the Great Wall are outside of the city of Beijing. After a few hours in the car, I arrived at the base of the mountain where tickets were purchased for the cable car that was to take me up to the Great Wall. The short ride up the steep mountain provided my first glimpse of the structure – there it was, on the top of the mountain, a long stone wall.
There seem to be discrepancies as to the exact length of this amazing construction, ranging from 4,000 miles to 13,000 miles, depending on whether or not all the branches, trenches, and fortifications are included in the calculations. Regardless, it is long. With my first steps onto the The Wall, with the first full circle rotation of my body, as my eyes took in the sight from all around, it was quickly apparent this was a long structure, an incredible construction.
I am not sure what I really pictured in my mind, having a mix of photographs and scenes from Disney’s Mulan in my head. But The Great Wall of China was longer and more complex than I imagined. I was surprised how steep many parts were, all the walking up and down, there were even some parts that included ladders and near vertical steps. It is beautifully set on top of the mountain range, so it follows the crest with steep slopes on both sides, making the Great Wall so hilly. It also provided me with stunning views of the surrounding mountains.
The construction of the Great Wall of China that we see today took place between the 14th and 17th Centuries AD, but bits and pieces were built over the course of 17 centuries, beginning all the way back in 900 B.C. It was built by hand, mainly by workers and criminals who carried stones up the mountain. Many died during the construction and were left there, buried under the wall and in the mountains. This makes The Great Wall of China the longest cemetery in the world.
Now, only some parts of The Wall are legally open to the public. For safety, only parts that have undergone restoration allow tourists.
Before I left The Great Wall, I took a moment to absorb how truly incredible the construction process must have been, how after the construction, soldiers walked the wall and stood in the fortresses protecting their land, and all the while, in my mind, some of it still looked like a scene out of Mulan, just more green.
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