What’s the best activ­ity if it’s 45C and you slept only 6 hours the pre­vi­ous night because the hos­tel was noisy? Climb­ing the Great Wall, of course!

We got up early and caught a bus to Badal­ing (八达岭), the most famous Great Wall stretch, two hours away from Bei­jing. I climbed the Great Wall in 1999 and I was look­ing for­ward to doing it again. Only that time I was pre­pared: I had good shoes and water. Two details I had for­got­ten the first time I was there (being 16 a stu­pid 16 years old).

Climb­ing the Great Wall is tough. It’s hot and within min­utes we were lit­er­ally drip­ping sweat, the steps are high and the slopes can be quite slip­pery. Basi­cally, it’s harder than it looks. But hey, the view is well worth the climb!

For some rea­son, we were greeted by bears at the entrance. I still won­der whether they were cap­tured in the wild nearby the Wall… I hope not!

Er…are they roam­ing around?

First View

Big Wall

Admir­ing The View

Graf­fiti On The Wall

No More Climbing!!

Related posts:

1. Above Ground
2. The Wall Live
3. Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket In The Spring
4. Mon­day In Finland
5. St Malo — A Walled City