China Study Tour: Jinshanling

Normally, Madhu takes the group to the Simatai portion of the Great Wall, but it’s currently closed for renovations, so we have gone to Jinshanling. The trip there is to take between 3.5 to 4 hours, depending on traffic out of Beijing. We had been warned from the first Saturday class of the steepness of Simatai, the need to train, and so on, and provided pictures demonstrating the point. We were told by our study tour guide, Peter, that Jinshanling would not disappoint as a replacement.

Before heading up the wall, we had a traditional Chinese lunch. It was pretty much the same as anything one could get in my favorite Chinese restaurant at home, Shanghai Gardens, making me think that it’s more authentic than I thought. We had noodles, various types of veggies, sweet & sour pork, cashew chicken, egg drop soup, corn fritters, and watermelon to finish off. My favorite was the garlic bok choy. My favorite dish in Singapore was bok choy with oyster sauce or garlic bok choy, and it has been one of the things I’ve been looking forward to most, culinary-wise, as I’ve never been quite able to replicate the flavor or texture in stir fry at home. The spread is reassuringly familiar and there is virtually no spice. This will be a much easier trip for my stomach than last year’s sojourn to India. I still can’t even look at red chili without my stomach clenching in remembrance of red curry. Stir fry bok choy sounds wonderful to me.

These sorts of groups are apparently one of the only ways for farmers in the region to make money, so they attach themselves to one tourist each on their trip along the Great Wall. My guy’s name was Zhou, and he was from north of the wall, and he is ethnically Mongolian.

Just the walk to get onto the wall was quite steep, and we’d driven very close on the bus. Actually being on the Great Wall was amazing. You could see all of the nearby peaks and could view dozens of guard towers before the wall disappeared into the gray-blue sky. We were there the same day as a cooperative marathon between Chinese and other nationalities. From what I could tell, mostly Germans were participating, and these folks were running a marathon along the Great Wall in sweltering heat. I commend them. Many of the non-Marathon tourists were also German, although I noticed a few French and Americans not with our group. I will use this as anecdotal evidence that Germany is recovering from the recession faster than everyone else, and will not listen to any protestations that that is completely anecdotal and can’t really be relied upon. All of the Germans, and speaking to a couple of them, made me a little homesick for Austria. I haven’t been back since May 2008, and it is my second-favorite place in the world, outside of Seattle.

Madhu wanted to make it to the thirteenth tower along the wall from the Jinshanling. However, from what I heard, Tami and Seu-jin decided to run the wall instead, and they went further, thus necessitating that Madhu go further as well. I did not participate in this portion of the Great Wall entertainment, having been nursing a particularly nasty travel migraine all day. Rubina’ and Zhou helped me get to the third tower, at which point I had to decide between my pride and my body, and my body won out. Still and all, I made it to the third tower, got some amazing pictures, and have gained a new appreciation for the sheer scale of what was accomplished when this wall was built without the benefit of any modern machinery.